Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Vote in the prediction poll for the overall winner

2009-05-03T08:16:00.003+03:00

With the prediction poll for the top 10 in the final now closed, there is time for one last poll before next week's semi-finals and final. From the countries predicted to make the top 10 in the final in Moscow you are now asked to select the one country you feel is most likely to win this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

If the country you think is going to win is not on the list, click on the country you think is next most likely to walk off with victory, or alternatively don't vote ;-) In less than a fortnight we'll see how right we all were!

Finalists: poll results

2009-05-03T07:44:00.002+03:00

The prediction polls for the most successful automatic finalists and ten countries you think will make up the final top 10 are now closed and reveal that people are fairly convinced about which songs will be doing well this year.

While seven of the countries predicted to make the top ten in the final were all nominated by at least 2 in 5 voters, only three were forecast by 1 in 2: perennial top tenners Greece, fan and bookie favourite Norway and diaspora darling Turkey. The bottom of the top 10 saw some close also-rans, with France and Malta only just missing out, but all of those predicted to make it were selected by pretty much every third voter. Here then are the ten countries predicted to be making up the top 10 in the final in Moscow, in alphabetical order:

- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Estonia
- Greece
- Norway
- Sweden
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom

I have my doubts about some of them, especially with juries involved, but there you are. Interestingly (or not), the results for the top 10 poll didn't quite seem to tally with those for the automatic finalist most likely to do well: although the UK came out top in both, France was thought more likely than Spain to make the top 10, but Spain was thought likelier overall to be the more successful of the two. I'm not sure how that works; it probably does on some level. Germany and Russia are both seen as unlikely to do very well, although Russia outscoring any of the Big 4 is a bet worth taking any time!

With rehearsals due to get underway in Moscow later today, reports will start trickling in that will change our perspectives somewhat before next week's semi-finals and final. In the meantime, one last poll will be opening in which you will be asked to predict the country you feel is most likely to win this year's contest.

Spain

2009-04-29T15:06:00.004+03:00

La Noche Es Para Mí Soraya

"No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo..."

You've got to wonder how much store broadcasters set by their results at Eurovision from one year to the next. Some clearly do, finding a winning formula and sticking to it, or conversely having no luck and therefore copying and pasting from more successful entries. Others tend not to notice, or at least care, content to do their own thing whatever result it produces. This year some countries seem to have reacted to the reintroduction of the juries by choosing songs more likely to appeal to them; others, in turn, don't seem to be doing very much that's different at all; and still others seem to have looked at the 50/50 results for 2007 and responded accordingly, if perhaps ill-advisedly. And then there's Spain. Harking back to their most recent equivalent to glory days (the string of top 10 results they got with uptempo Iberian trash from 2001 to 2003, plus 2004), their entry for Moscow - La Noche Es Para Mí - is geared pretty much exclusively towards the flag-waving, statement-making OGAE crowd in the front five rows. Bugger the juries.

A suitably Eurovision number to end the final on, La Noche Es Para Mí is not without its good points (the acoustic and string arrangements are great), but the focus is on the disco campness of it all. Blonde bombshell Soraya is the perfect front man for the song, delivering it with energy and attitude, and with the luck of the draw on their side - something getting the #24 spot which takes the wind out of the UK's sails rather than their own - Spain may just provide enough spectacle in closing the show to snap up the dance music votes of an audience still enthusiastic about it by the time the televoting lines open a few minutes later. Certain juries may be more disposed to the kind of music and entertainment La Noche Es Para Mí offers, too. So in theory the song could go on to give the Spaniards their best result in at least five years.

In practice, I can't see Spain doing any better with La Noche Es Para Mí than they did with I Love You Mi Vida in 2007 - a very similar song in a year we have comparable results for. The one thing it has working in its favour is that it is being performed last rather than second, but even then I suspect its chances of breaking out of the right-hand side of the scoreboard are slim. There's just something about the song that screams 'fan favourite' rather than 'audience favourite' to me, and Soraya comes across a little too much like Finland's Laura Voutilainen for me to think she'll be any more attractive as a performer. But whether or not the night proves to be Spain's, La Noche Es Para Mí will be something of a measuring stick for the 50/50 system and quite possibly indicative of the direction Eurovision will be taking in the coming years, making for interesting viewing.

United Kingdom

2009-04-29T14:23:00.005+03:00

It's My Time Jade Ewen

"I've earned the right to show you it's my time tonight..."

Eurovision is not a big name contest. It is a massive event, in terms of the sheer number of countries taking part and the scale it now works on, but it is not one that attracts world-famous names in the music industry. Many composers and performers who are highly respected at a national or regional level do take part, and while it would be brilliant for each of the 40+ acts each year to be identifiable by the majority of the people watching, with the best will in the world the nature of Eurovision just doesn't allow it. One of the few countries who could theoretically have entered internationally renowned and/or popular artists every year (and possibly won) but hasn't is the United Kingdom, second only to the United States in providing Europe with chart-topping acts. Instead, in recent years, they have tended to go for relative unknowns with unremarkable songs, and have had their worst ever run of results in consequence. But all that is set to change in Moscow, with the BBC having somehow managed to persuade Andrew Lloyd Webber - one of the biggest household names in music in the world - to write the nation's 2009 Eurovision entry for them: It's My Time.

While promising much, the approach seemed to deliver very little, with many fans underwhelmed by the song the composer (and American lyricist extraordinaire Dianne Warren) had come up with. The idea was fine, but the execution appeared to be flawed in two basic areas: the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber, for all his credentials, has very little in common with contemporary pop music; and that however amazing the names behind It's My Time, the song would still end up being fronted by a nobody due to its being written for Eurovision and therefore failing to interest established groups and singers. This led many viewers to dismiss eventual performer Jade Ewen* and, by extension, the entire process that led to the creation of the entry whilst choosing to overlook the fact that what emerged from the national selection show Your Country Needs You was very much a work in progress.

I'll admit I was one of those nay-sayers upon the unveiling of It's My Time. I mightn't have shot it down in flames, but it had disappointed for being so very Lloydwebberish and also, as I saw it, slightly cynical for suggesting that the names involved made its success not only a foregone conclusion, but almost a right. However, Lord Webber's obvious uncertainty about the song and Jade's ability to do it complete justice - and the BBC's determination to see both be as good as they could - persuaded me to give It's My Time the chance to improve, and that's exactly what it has done. While not the most immediate of songs, it has been reworked and remixed to make it sound more contemporary and less like a forgotten musical number, without sacrificing the ALW trademarks; and the very likeable and suitably humble Jade has, through endless national final appearances, polished her delivery to the point where, at the Russian national final (one of the last of the season), she achieved something she had utterly failed to do when performing the song originally: give me goosebumps listening to it.

Yes, you might say, but by that point you'd heard it a hundred times. Which I had, but that's just it: song and singer have reached a point where they're both pitching it just right. This is a hugely important consideration when we're dealing with a song that could so easily have fallen flat. It's My Time has a plum draw in the final, and if Jade nails it on the night she may have the same effect on the audience as she had on me in Moscow. That alone should see the song doing much better for itself than most other recent UK entries, but combined with a jury vote suddenly propels the song into top 10 or even top 5 contention, if not outright victory. Any jury determined to overlook the song would only be doing so as a reaction against the names behind it, since it is a classy piece of music. It might not be the most modern song in this year's contest, and it may seem better suited to Eurovision as it was 20 years ago, but It's My Time has come a long way in a short time - and for the first time in many years the UK has every chance of once again winning the contest it dominated for so long.

*for want of a better word; is there a single verb for loudly, repeatedly and almost always baselessly criticising something seemingly for the sake of it?

Germany

2009-04-26T13:45:00.003+03:00

Miss Kiss Kiss Bang Alex Swings Oscar Sings!

"Extra-ordinary and oh so cool..."

The "if at first you don't succeed" maxim with Eurovision seems to go "try again, and again, and again, and if that doesn't work, try again, but reverting to an earlier try... and then try again". Countries often fall into the trap of repeating themselves when they are desperate to return to the upper reaches of the scoreboard, but generally without success, since nine times out of ten the copy is a pale imitation of the original. Some countries can get away with pulling the same song apart and putting it back together slightly differently each year, but that's because they have a sound that appeals to a broad cross-section of the audience, and some success to go on in doing so. Germany doesn't, and hasn't, and as a result is likely to find that the only title Miss Kiss Kiss Bang is in contention for in Moscow is that of least successful automatic finalist.

The thinking behind NDR's choice of Alex Swings Oscar Sings! is a little hard to fathom. The release of the combined televoting and jury results from Helsinki, which showed that Roger Cicero's Frauen Regier'n Die Welt would have fared immeasurably better under such a system, may have encouraged the broadcaster to try the same formula again; it's hard to account for their faith in Miss Kiss Kiss Bang otherwise, since it has only a fraction of the quality of their 2007 entry. A brass track alone does not a swing number make, especially when the rest of it is so blatantly programmed. It leaves the song feeling cold and soulless; more like something discarded from Madonna's I'm Breathless (the Dick Tracy soundtrack) than a true representative of the genre. Which was fine in 1990, and in context, but not when it's abandoned to a Eurovision fate without any of the cartoon appeal.

None of this is a reflection on the song's performer, Oscar Loya, who has a decent voice, although he too feels out of place singing Miss Kiss Kiss Bang, for any number of reasons. People have suggested he and his entry will pose the only threat to Greece's Sakis Rouvas in the final, drawn as they are at the three-quarter mark, but nothing about the German entry suggests to me that it will challenge anything much, let alone something as 'properly' calculated as This Is Our Night. Audiences impressed by the level of songs and singers employed on shows like Strictly Come Dancing might enjoy Miss Kiss Kiss Bang, but that doesn't alter the fact that it is Germany doing what they've done before with far less panache. As such, I can't see it finishing in Moscow anywhere other than at the lower end of the scoreboard, and a record three-from-five last place is well within the realms of possibility.

Russia

2009-04-26T12:03:00.003+03:00

Mamo Anastasya Prihodko

"Я дождём девичьи слезы разолью..."

Eurovision might not be a matter of national pride for the majority of people who watch it, or even for some who take part, but it invariably is for the host country. Whatever it ends up being a PR exercise in - from mending fences to attracting long-term foreign investment - it is a chance for the previous year's winner to outdo the last lot, propagate cultural cliches in a cheesy and lighthearted way and and generally say "look at us, aren't we great/better than you expected". They also usually come up with a home entry that sees local singing and songwriting talent produce something indicative of the country, if not in their native language then at least in the international one. It comes as something of a surprise then to find 2009 hosts Russia, who redefine what it means to be nationalistic, choosing Mamo to represent them in Moscow - a song written by a Georgian and an Estonian and sung by a Ukrainian. In Ukrainian.

Well, half-Ukrainian. Of course, what all this does represent - in a way I'm happy to admit I would never have expected Russia to allow - is the multicultural hotchpotch the modern nation has become, thanks, for want of a better word, to Soviet intermingling. It would be like last year's Serbian entry having been written by a Swedish composer (who else) and a Swiss lyricist and performed by a singer from Kosovo partly in Albanian. Or not, since that's the irony of Mamo: whoever wrote it, it's one of the most quintessentially Russian Russian entries in a long time, and completely representative of what the country's music industry does so well. That is, take mediocre and frequently unattractive talent, school them in melodrama and the heart-rending ways of 'gala' television and write songs for them that both politely and sycophantically pale in comparison to the Alla Pugachova numbers they aspire to be.

Everything about Mamo is contrived, from its victory in the national final (coincidentally heavy on the Women's Day advertising) to its tragic interpreter, Anastasya Prihodko. Anyone who was privileged to hear Albanian singer Frederik Ndoci speak at his press conferences in Helsinki in 2007 about the pain of history - his own and that of his nation - will see through the catharsis of spurious sentiment accompanying Mamo instantly, however thick it's layered on. Whether it's true or not is immaterial: the Russian (and clearly also Ukrainian) love of drama twists it out of all proportion, leaving little room for sympathy. Not that Russia lacks an audience at Eurovision, but this year they find themselves no better off than they were with Yulia Savicheva or Natalia Podolskaya in 2004 and 2005 in terms of known names or songs with obvious widespread appeal. As hosts they should generate enough self-promotion to counter this effect, and even under the 50/50 system a left-side-of-scoreboard finish should be within their reach. They start with a good 100-point lead, after all.

Besides, if Mamo comes and goes and passes everyone by in all but their most fervent of supporting states, Russia can always resort to that other aspect of their national psyche: the argument that everybody is against them and that no one understands or appreciates what the country has done or ever will do. It wouldn't occur to them that with an entry like Mamo the only understanding and appreciation they're going to get is from those who already do. (That, needless to say, being the point.) Ms Prihodko and her tale of woe are Russia in miniature, with all of the angst, nostalgia, fake emotion and duality that entails. Ticking all of these boxes as it does, it is sure to do the hosts proud.

France

2009-04-24T16:53:00.003+03:00

Et S'il Fallait Le Faire Patricia Kaas

"Je veux bien tout donner, si seul'ment tu y crois..."

It's no exaggeration to say that many great songs have been overlooked in Eurovision's history. Often the justification given by those clearly more enamoured of them than those who had the chance to vote on them is that they are "too good for the contest", whatever that means. It implies that the audience or juries are incapable of recognising quality or at least that they are unwilling to reward it, perhaps because of the level Eurovision is perceived to work on. The truth is generally closer to home: as good as a song might be, if it lacks that certain something on the night that grabs the voters and hangs on to them, all the quality in the world counts for very little. Admirable as it is, it won't win you the contest just because, and that's despite the stated purpose Eurovision serves - a lesson the French may learn in Moscow with Et S'il Fallait Le Faire.

Not that winning the whole shebang is in the forefront of every broadcaster's mind in entering the contest: many are content to contribute quality in an era when 'quantity' (i.e. performance and spectacle; more bang for your buck) plays perhaps a greater role in determining the outcome. There's certainly much to admire about Et S'il Fallait Le Faire, as a song and as an approach to Eurovision. Not only does it boast some typically wonderful French lyrics - far and away the most poetic and meaningful of the year - and an arrangement that works perfectly with what the song is saying, but in Patricia Kaas France 3 have given the contest what many, indeed most other countries either do not or cannot: one of their biggest stars. If Eurovision worked the way it ideally should, it would showcase 40 of Europe's biggest national music acts every year, with none of the cobbled together groups and 'specially written' entries that have earned the contest its dubious reputation. In this light, the fact that France could persuade a star of Patricia Kaas' stature to even consider taking part is a coup.

Which is not to say either she or Et S'il Fallait Le Faire should therefore automatically be handed victory on a plate; quite the opposite. With televoting still accounting for 50% of the result in Moscow, Mlle Kaas will have to prove to the people watching at home that she and her song are worthy of the hype that accompany them, since in any case she'll be just another singer to many. If she invests enough of herself in the performance to convince both the televoters and the juries, and to keep them convinced irrespective of the two dozen-odd songs that follow, France could well find themselves back at (or at least near to) the top of the scoreboard at the end of the voting. Which is probably a place they could have been at various times in recent years had they not failed to connect with the audience.

And let's face it, redemption is not at the top of televoters' lists of reasons to vote for a song or country at Eurovision. For Et S'il Fallait Le Faire to succeed among ordinary voters - for it is likely to fare better with the juries - they will actually have to like the song, and that may be its biggest sticking point. No song is too good for the contest, but some can be too good for their own good: an appreciation of the quality of an entry is not enough if it doesn't reach out and grab you, and move you, and make you want to hear it again. And as many people have admitted, Et S'il Fallait Le Faire is not the easiest song to like even if everything is telling you you ought to. For better or worse, Eurovision is designed to enthrall as much as it is to shine the spotlight on great music; only if the French entry does both will it achieve the result it arguably deserves.

Automatic finalists

2009-04-24T15:53:00.002+03:00

Our five automatic finalists in 2009 couldn't be more different from one another if they tried. No two represent the same genre or are aimed at the same audience, and all are as diverse in the potential they have to do well. Or for that matter bomb.

In a break from tradition, at least two of the Big 4 entries look like they might actually do OK: France and the United Kingdom, both of which boast big names behind them, and both of which could go down a treat with the juries, if not the televoters. France in particular may struggle due to having another 22 songs performed after it; having said that, true quality ought to leave a lasting impression.

The Spanish, having chosen to perform last, must be thinking they have a chance this year, but I honestly can't see them doing all that much better than they did in the combined jury and televote in 2007 (i.e. not very). Germany is hovering in a zone that has produced a lot of recent winners, but if any of the five finalists is in for an obvious bottom five result, it's them.

Last but not least, hosts Russia are taking to the stage roughly halfway through the show, and a mid-table finish (minimum) is pretty much a certainty. The country's ability to earn enough points whatever it sends to make the top 5 due to its mammoth diaspora will inevitably be diluted by the jury votes, probably enough to see them edged out of the top 10, but not enough to demote them to the right-hand side of the scoreboard.

The different approaches the entries from the automatic finalists take is what makes them interesting this year - the first in many in which the Big 4 will actually be hopeful of not ending up yet again as the Bottom 4. Makes finding an angle for reviewing them easier too ;-) And on that note...

Vote in the prediction poll for the overall top 10!

2009-04-23T17:00:00.002+03:00

The prediction poll for the top 10 in the final will open shortly. Please note that it is a prediction poll and not a poll of your favourite entries. You should select the 10 countries you feel will make up the top 10 in the final, remembering that the result will be generated by televoters and juries ("of music professionals") alike. The twenty semi-final qualifiers are based on the results of the earlier polls here on the blog. The poll will close in a week's time prior to the start of rehearsals in Moscow. Have fun :)

Vote in the prediction poll for the automatic finalists!

2009-04-23T16:57:00.003+03:00

The prediction poll for the automatic finalists will open shortly. Please note that it is a prediction poll and not a poll of your favourites. You should select the one country out of the five you feel will do best. The poll will close in a week's time, just before rehearsals start. To quote LT United: "...vote!" :)

Semi 2: poll results

2009-04-23T16:45:00.002+03:00

The prediction poll for the 2nd semi-final is now closed and the results are in - and they seem to indicate that this semi could throw up more surprises than the 1st, especially among the lower qualifiers. This time only six of the 'top ten' were voted on by more than 60% of respondents, with three others making it through with less than 50% and four countries fighting it out for the final slot. But if the poll is any indication, Thursday night's semi will see the following ten countries (in alphabetical order) qualify for the final:

- Azerbaijan
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Greece
- Ireland
- Lithuania
- Moldova
- Norway
- Serbia
- Ukraine

Lithuania only just edged out Albania, which in turn was not all that far ahead of Hungary and (inexplicably) the Netherlands. Most of the other songs got their share of support, with only Poland and Slovakia coming up significantly short. I can't see Ireland getting through and think most people are greatly underestimating Latvia, but would otherwise agree.

The prediction polls for the finalists and the overall top 10 will be up shortly.

Semi 2: overview

2009-04-22T17:09:00.002+03:00

Listening to each of the songs in the 2nd semi-final individually a hundred times over and once more all through hasn't seen me waver much in my convictions of who will qualify and who won't. Based on the assumptions that none of the performances are wonky (and that's a big assumption to make with some of them!), the obvious qualifiers still seem as obvious. It's once you get past them that it starts getting interesting.

Of the nine songs in Act One, I can't see any more than four qualifying, and only two of them are no-brainers: neighbours Norway and Denmark. Of the remainder, only Latvia and Serbia show any signs of having what it takes (i.e. an appropriate audience in a sufficient number of countries), but if they do get through I wouldn't expect either of them to do so terribly convincingly. Despite their [very different] appeal, I can't see either Croatia or Ireland making enough of an impact.

The interval act, Slovenia, will only qualify if the majority of Thursday night televoters have very bad taste.

Act Two is almost certain to give us the bulk of our qualifiers. Despite most of the last nine songs being in direct competition with one another in terms of how upbeat most of them are, they may just about all get through. The obvious exception is the Netherlands, although Albania is on shakier ground than I would have expected it to be. Ukraine is dead-set, and Lithuania is actually well-placed to stand out among everything going on around it. If there is a big casualty here it might in fact be Azerbaijan, unless their performance improves.

Rolling out the same old spiel, here then are the countries whose names I predict will be in the ten envelopes at the end of the night. Personal preference doesn't come into it; it's based on the assumption that all 19 performances are equally good and equally attractive in their own right; I make no distinction between the nine that qualify through televoting and the jury wildcard; and they're in alphabetical order rather than any anticipated ranking.

- Azerbaijan
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Greece
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Moldova
- Norway
- Serbia
- Ukraine

Mind you, looking at it now I'm not sure I'll score better than about 7 out of 10. My personal preference would see Hungary replacing Greece (oh! how I would love for Sakis not to even qualify) (and for man's man Zoli to camp it up all the way to the bank!) but I doubt it's going to happen, or at least not at Greece's expense. A lot might change though in just a week-and-a-bit's time when the rehearsals start. Fingers crossed in some cases!

The Netherlands

2009-04-22T16:24:00.004+03:00

Shine The Toppers

"There are so many things not right..."

The on-season is a hectic time of year for avid Eurovision fans: as if it's not hard enough keeping up with the 40+ national selections going on across the continent, many broadcasters fill the gap between then and the HoD meeting (and sometimes between then and the night of the contest itself) tweaking their entries and releasing new versions. Some countries make a habit of it for the simple reason that they don't have a lot of choice; Albania, for example, who had to compress 4-and-a-bit minutes of Më Merr Në Ëndërr into 3 minutes of Carry Me In Your Dreams for Moscow. Others do it to improve on and/or bring out the best in their entries. Others, though, make the kind of choices that do neither and that leave you shaking your head wondering what on earth they were thinking. That's what the Netherlands have done this year: taken the cringeworthy but otherwise decent Shine and remixed it into total oblivion.

What started out life as a chintzy, slightly embarrassing but well-meaning anthem by the chintzy, slightly embarrassing but well-meaning Dutch trio the Toppers has had its dated disco appeal stripped away and been abandoned to a kind of clubland minimalism whose only signature is a bassline punctuated by farty synths. Not realising that about the only thing Shine had going for it - apart from last-minute stud-muffin and Roger Federer lookalike Jeroen van der Boom - was its unabashed gayness, including but not limited to the fat female backing singers and mardi gras float feel to the performance, the Toppers and/or NOS took the decision to butch it up by employing an eminent DJ (not that you'd know) to remix it. The result speaks for itself, and only makes the trio seem more desperate and pitiable.

There's not a lot else to say about Shine. It's a perfect example of when it really is better to leave well alone in Eurovision. It has very few, if any, redeeming features. Not only is it a virtually certain non-qualifier, keeping the Netherlands out of the final for the fifth year running, but it must also be a solid candidate to come last in the 2nd semi-final, since the country has no friends and the song's appeal is limited. I couldn't predict a better result for it even if it weren't one of my least favourite songs of 2009, since it has 'loser(s)' written all over it.

Estonia

2009-04-21T16:36:00.002+03:00

Rändajad Urban Symphony

"Kõrbekuumuses liiva lendab kui jääkülma lund..."

There's a prevailing mindset among certain Eurovision fans that if a song isn't the brainless pop for which the contest is frequently maligned by average viewers and those in the music industry, it doesn't deserve a place in the line-up. If it isn't an undemanding ballad or schlager or some other confection, and it displays a degree of intent and integrity that sees it referred to as proper music, it's pretentious. That's the label that's stuck on a handful of songs each year - particularly those which feature a string arrangement and make a point of highlighting it on stage - and the people who support them, as if entering such a thing in a popular music contest is getting ideas above your station. But Eurovision embraces a surprisingly diverse range of music, and results in recent years have shown that the televoting audience will, on the whole, recognise and reward quality whatever form it takes. Estonia will undoubtedly be hoping they do so in Moscow, since Rändajad qualifying would see the country in the final for the first time since 2003.

And the indications seem to be that Urban Symphony will in fact make it that far in Russia. Whatever the accusations levelled at Rändajad by those who prefer their Eurovision more along the lines of Carry Me In Your Dreams or Be My Valentine!, the majority of fans would appear to be behind the Estonian entry: it is one of relatively few countries tipped to almost certainly qualify from the 2nd semi-final. This probably has as much to do with the draw as it does any intrinsic quality the song has, since it stands out a mile among the last 10 or so entries and is an oasis of calm after the OTT Ukrainian number. Some have said that the risk Rändajad runs is in its reserve - the fact that it is slightly cold and aloof - but this is entirely in keeping with (a) what it's about and (b) it being Estonian. Considering the support it has gained despite being performed in a language next to no one understands, even that might not be a problem. There's just something about the song that makes it... absorbing.

Of course, the fact that Rändajad is being performed in Moscow in Estonian* may work in its favour, since the audience will be left to focus on the music and visuals. There is something utterly mesmerising about Sandra Nurmsalu and her vocals, and the rhythm of the song - its insistence and persistence; completely in keeping again with what the song is saying - pull you into and along with it in a way that is almost hypnotic. The fact that the composition is anchored around the violin, viola and cello makes it accessible to viewers all over the continent, but perhaps more importantly, the Eastern touches to the percussion and synths see the song covering all of the bases. It's no exaggeration to say that Rändajad is one of 2009's most complete and attractive packages.

On a personal level, I am extremely proud as a quasi-Estonian that our entry will be the only one in Moscow of all the former Soviet states to be performed entirely in its native language. The whole point of rejigging the national final was to produce a song [only incidentally for Eurovision] which was fundamentally Estonian, and that's what Rändajad is, right down to the way it feels and the quiet confidence with which it's delivered. It's bizarre to think that it comes from the studio of Sven Lõhmus, the same man who inflicted Let's Get Loud on Europe in 2005, but that in itself should be enough to tell those scoffing at the song that there's little about it that's pretentious: there's room for all sorts at ESC. Even if it is, I don't care: it's the best Estonian entry in a long time, one of 2009's most iconic and easily one of the year's best.

*A language a lot of people seem to agree might as well be made up ;-)

Ukraine

2009-04-21T15:58:00.003+03:00

Be My Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl) Svetlana Loboda

"The charm that I possess will put you to the test..."

Making something out of nothing is a skill peculiar to certain countries at Eurovision. Many come up with entries that have you thinking "yeah, that's got potential" only to frustrate you by doing little or nothing to improve them. Others, like Malta, tend to start with the basics and work their way up from there, sometimes surprising you for their ability to knock something into shape come contest time. Then there's Ukraine, whom we have already seen take a song with very little to recommend it, give it a complete overhaul, stage it in a way that's so clever and effective it puts everyone else to shame and land themselves in the top ten in the process. 2009 sees them doing an I Am Your Queen/Show Me Your Love all over again: from the ashes of the uninspiring Be My Valentine has risen a phoenix claiming to be every last viewer's Anti-Crisis Girl.

Well alright, it's still called Be My Valentine, but you can't ignore the makeover the song's been given: the kind of plastic surgery Charlotte Perrelli could only dream of. Ukraine has shown itself to have a love of bombastic show numbers at Eurovision, and with their entry for Moscow they are clearly aiming to repeat their success in this area. Like the Serbian entry, Svetlana Loboda's three minutes of performance leaves itself open to accusations of taking the piss, but it isn't a novelty act per se: it's just a Eurovision entry with its tongue in its cheek, whilst completely serious in its intent to entertain the audience and win their support. The fact that it does so through grand spectacle isn't the point. Even if the promised hell machine fails to descend from the rigging, Be My Valentine! is almost certain to drive the Albanian entry from viewers' minds and leave enough of a lingering impression (given there are only two songs left in the semi after it) to stroll into Saturday night's final.

If the final itself were still an all-televoting affair, I would happily predict yet another top two finish for Ukraine, since Be My Valentine! has all of the elements a song needs to do well in the SMS frenzy otherwise known as the contemporary Eurovision democracy. But even with juries accounting for half of the result I wouldn't rule out a top three/five/at least ten placing for the song, since in musical terms it's both competent and catchy. It all depends on the extent to which the juries are there to counter plebeian voting habits as opposed to still voting on the best songs and performances overall. Not that Be My Valentine! qualifies as one of the more remarkable compositions of the year, but it's got a lot going for it however you look at it.

Back-to-back runners-up, Ukraine have earned themselves a reputation as being to modern Eurovision what the UK was to the contest in days of old. They'll undoubtedly win the whole thing again at some point; perhaps not in 2009, but it wouldn't surprise me if they came close. As long as they remain capable of turning something like Be My Valentine into Anti-Crisis Girl and retain their name as one of the savviest countries in the contest when it comes to putting on a performance, they will always be up there among the contenders. And deservedly so.

Albania

2009-04-20T18:21:00.002+03:00

Carry Me In Your Dreams Kejsi Tola

"No strings attached..."

Whatever else Eurovision may give us, it all comes back to uncomplicated pop in the end. Countries can deliver complex anthems and multi-layered orchestration and lyrics as meaningful as some of the greatest poetry, but at some point they will recall and return to what the contest, at its core, is all about: upbeat, uptempo, straightforward songs that conform to certain criteria and are completely transparent. One country to have come full circle in this respect is Albania, who are returning to their pop roots in Moscow with Kejsi Tola's Carry Me In Your Dreams. Having cracked the top ten on debut with the similarly styled The Image Of You, they will be hoping that their restoration of Eurofabulousness takes them there once again after their wholly worthy but less successful intervening entries failed to do so, or failed to get them very far when they did.

I suspect, however, that composer Edmond Zhulali and lyricist June Muftaraj ('Mufty'?) Taylor - the same team behind Anjeza Shahini and Albania's first outing to the contest - will come away disappointed. While there's nothing wrong with Carry Me In Your Dreams, the fact that it comes fully labelled and does what it says on the tin may not be enough to sell it to the audience or the juries in a semi-final which is already hard enough to qualify from. It's destined to pick up points here and there, but I doubt it will collect enough of them to make it on its own, and the ingenuousness of the composition (in which the Albanian bagpipes seem more of an afterthought than ever before) suggests it is unlikely to win the support of any jury scoring it on depth and complexity. And in that case there'll only be one person who can change their minds: Ms Tola herself.

Unfortunately, where Kejsi is concerned it's very much a case of 'Jan Brady sings for Albania'. She has a fantastic voice for someone her age, but it's her age that's the problem: Festival i Këngës showed that while more than capable of belting out the song, she has no stage presence whatsoever. This was underscored in the preview video, in which she makes turning on the spot look like an exercise in applied mechanics. She is the quintessential ungainly teenager; one with killer vocals, sure, but however excited RTSH are getting about their Greek choreographer, there's only so much you can do with someone who makes a song like Carry Me In Your Dreams look like a gawky incident at a blue light disco. I would love for Albania to prove me wrong, since the song is one of my favourite pop concoctions in this year's selection, and unconditionally likeable, but I have my doubts.

Moldova

2009-04-20T17:35:00.003+03:00

Hora Din Moldova Nelly Ciobanu

"Şi zi-i mai tare lăutare, să se-audă-n lumea mare..."

Eurovision wouldn't be the same if it didn't offer us at least three minutes of ethnic knees-up every year. Part of the point of the contest - albeit one of diminished significance these days - is throwing a bit of national colour at the screen and encouraging the people to dance along at home. It invariably falls to the contest's southern and eastern participants to provide such spectacle, since Western Europe fails to the see the attraction of its own folk heritage: the UK has conspicuously failed to give us any morris dancing at the contest, although Portugal came close a few years ago to gifting the audience this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgVyjZw54u4. One country who saw the benefit of showcasing their heritage on their debut, if in a rather exaggerated way, was Moldova, and they are returning to it in Moscow - in a much purer if no less manic or enjoyable form - for their fifth entry, Hora Din Moldova.

From the moment the excitable and rather stunning Nelly Ciobanu opens her mouth, you know the song she is about to sing is not going to be your run-of-the-mill Eurovision schlager, although ironically that's pretty much what Hora Din Modova is in folk terms. Similar to the Cypriot entry in Belgrade, Femme Fatale, which was essentially a cabaret take on the sirtaki, the Moldovan entry is the nation's dance tradition set to music, right down to the wailing, the men shouting, the hey-hey! bits and the sense that somewhere just off stage the homemade vodka is flowing freely. You don't need to understand it, even if they do chuck in a bit of English; you don't even need to like it, really. Provided you're in the right frame of mind, something like Hora Din Moldova should sweep you up and take you with it whether you want it to or not. And given that a lot of people who watch Eurovision do so precisely because of songs like it, I can't see it failing to qualify, for the feel-good factor alone.

The other thing the song has going for it in the 2nd semi-final is that although it forms part of a long run of upbeat numbers, it's not in direct competition with any of them: the Greek and Hungarian entries can be seen to be rivalling each other for the audience's attention, as can the straightforward ethnopop of the Azerbaijani and Albanian entries, but Hora Din Moldova stands pretty much alone. Normally at least one other Balkan [or similar] country would roll up with something alone these lines, but the nearest equivalent in Moscow is probably the Serbian song Cipela, and there's no reason the two shouldn't coexist perfectly happily in the final*. I would certainly expect Moldova to make it that far, in any case.

What happens at that point is anyone's guess, since other factors then come into play which are harder to account for. But barring a performance where the vocals don't come together or the atmosphere is just strangely flat, I can see Hora Din Moldova returning the country to the top ten, since it is personable and professional enough to get everyone up and dancing. In many ways it represents what Eurovision is meant to be about, and ought to be embraced for that reason alone.

*Although they wouldn't want to be drawn back-to-back.

Lithuania

2009-04-20T17:04:00.003+03:00

Love Sasha Son

"For just one moment, we all wanna be just as happy as one can be..."

The reintroduction of juries in Eurovision as a response to the increasing variance between televote and back-up results has led to endless speculation about the influence they will have on the overall result. The consensus seems to be that the input of the five-member national committees in the final will only have a moderate effect, and it doesn't alter the fact that those countries qualifying from the semi-finals still have to pretty much on televoting alone. This does present a scenario where (theoretically) semi winners could plummet to the lower reaches of the scoreboard and more lowly qualifiers fare much better, but the likelihood is not all that high since televoting will prevail in the combined scores. Anything that struggles to qualify with the public's support may find it just as hard to get anywhere in the final. On the other hand, if they qualify as the jury wildcard, they may do better than expected. We may none of us be any the wiser until after the event, but the Lithuanian entry for Moscow, Sasha Son's Love, may prefer to get the wildcard and take its chances than be promoted by the televoters in, say, 9th place.

One of what you might expect to be the more obvious nominees for the jury prize in the 2nd semi-final should it be overlooked by the audience, Love is a tough one to call. It is well-placed towards the end of the semi as the only ballad in a string of almost ten more or less uptempo numbers, and will certainly stand out between the Greek entry on before it and the Moldovan romp taking to the stage directly after it. Assuming the juries are the same as those employed for the final - a big assumption at this point; they could be the OGAE love-ins of 2008 all over again - the song is likely to impress them wherever it comes in the run, but wedged between This Is Our Night and Hora Din Moldova its class is sure to shine through. Whether it captures the audience in the same way depends to a degree on how the Lithuanians stage it: man-at-piano worked well for Norway's Jostein Hasselgård in 2003, and the simpler Mr Son keeps it the better it is likely to work. And if that's the case, Love ought to qualify on merit instead of needing to be rescued by the juries.

Either way, Lithuania deserves to be in the final with this song, and it will be Eurovision's loss if Love is scorned by the viewers and then slips through the safety net, too. Beautifully orchestrated and arranged, with some great vocals by composer, lyricist and soloist Sasha, it is one of the country's best entries, and one of few generally to have made such a successful transition from the original version. You've got to hand it to anyone who can fit the title of a song into its chorus 17 times and still make it sound like poetry; Pasiklydęs Žmogus certainly couldn't have, and neither does the Russian version that's materialised. Not that Love needs to pander to the audience through its choice of words: it is one of the most striking compositions of the year, which hopefully either the viewers or the juries will recognise. It might be too much to ask for both, but the Lithuanian entry succeeding would be a true indication of the success of Eurovision's new format, and a triumph for the contest.

Greece

2009-04-19T13:08:00.003+03:00

This Is Our Night Sakis Rouvas

"We can do it, just wait and see..."

Eurovision is often accused of being a triumph of style over substance, and there is plenty of evidence to back up the claim. For a start, it has no self-avowed purpose other than to entertain, and while that doesn't require the producers or the audience to check their brains in at the arena door, the contest makes no claims to greatness, least of all musical. The fact that most of the people who watch it are looking to be entertained probably explains why many songs that might otherwise lend the contest a modicum of credibility either never make it that far or tend to be overlooked if they do in favour of something more germane. Which is not to say that such songs intrinsically have no value, or that no effort goes into them; on the contrary, the trashiest numbers can be some of Eurovision's most highly choreographed and most heavily promoted. That, though, only reinforces the contest's reputation - which will be cemented further in Moscow by the Greek entry, This Is Our Night.

Presumably with more planning per square metre and a budget higher than some of its less affluent competitors, This Is Our Night is set to explode onto the stage at the Olympic Arena and burst onto screens throughout Europe with all of the energy its synth-heavy production and plucked performer Sakis Rouvas can muster. Exhibiting the workmanlike values and ambition of every club anthem ever, the song is, I imagine, meant to tap into the average audience's love of anything upbeat and personally engaging when presented to them in the virile form of Greek man. The biggest metrosexual in the contest and one of its least naturally talented where singing is concerned, Sakis is a coiffeured, calculated means to an end. He's buff, he does backflips, and he has the ability to distract you from the blatant shortcomings in the songs he is selling through sheer force of performance alone. This is of course the whole point, but it makes him about as programmed as the material he is given to work with.

To be fair, the fact that This Is Our Night has nothing to do with real music hardly singles it out for criticism in a forum like Eurovision, and cynicism will never negate its appeal. Someone in a studio pressing buttons can push a lot of other people's, especially if that's exactly the kind of thing they expect from the contest. I don't doubt the song will deliver Greece yet another decent placing either, although its omnipotence may be diluted come the final by juries wielding influence other than the purely sexually motivated. Low-cut denims and a hint of six-pack should count for little if the song has to stand up on its own two feet, since it exists within a range of about four notes. A song doesn't have to have complex vocals or layered orchestration to earn its place in the line-up of an annual music contest whose remit extends no further than providing seven hours of colourful diversion, but This Is Our Night is the perception of Eurovision in microcosm. The triumph of style over substance has a new name, and that name is Sakis Rouvas.

Azerbaijan

2009-04-19T12:28:00.003+03:00

Always AySel & Arash

"Finally I've found you and now I'll never let you go..."

It's funny how just the sound of an entry can dictate its fortunes in Eurovision, considering how unpredictable the contest remains at times. There are songs you hear and instinctively know will do well, such as the Norwegian entry Fairytale, and for that matter the Norwegian entry in 2008, Hold On Be Strong. Another country to have produced back-to-back entries with the same sense of going places about them is Azerbaijan. On debut in Begrade they entered something with the sort of bombast and theatre I knew would see them end top ten, and although their entry for Moscow, Always, is more restrained, it too bears the hallmarks of something bound to do well.

Or at least qualify. As the Turkish understudy in the 2nd semi-final, Azerbaijan is one of those countries with a foot in the door before it's even been opened, and their making it to the final on that alone is always high on the list of probabilities. Throw in a well-produced, catchy song with wider appeal than their first entry and qualification is virtually assured. (For an explanation of the 'virtually', see below.) Quite a number of people seemed underwhelmed with Always upon its unveiling, claiming it lacked oomph and sounded like the kind of thing that would come second-last in a Melodifestivalen semi, and though it does lack a key change where there should logically be one (at the 2:12 mark), it still sounds solid and Western™ enough to appeal to more than just Eastern Europe and the Turkic diaspora.

The caveat with Always, and the only thing I can see derailing the song's chances, is the pair singing it. Having drafted in Iranian-born half-Swede half-Azeri something-nothing Arash as producer, İTV then made the mistake of forcing him upon AySel, and a couple of half-baked promo performances later the only label being applied to them was 'gormless'. This would be a problem if we weren't dealing with a country like Azerbaijan: I can see Always being 2009's Qele Qele, going on to score well despite not receiving the performance it needs to make it truly worthy of such a result. Let's face it, Aysel and Arash would have to take gormlessness to new, Moldova- and Macedonia-rivalling heights* to shoot themselves in all four feet. When songs like this from countries like these sound like they do - one they'll probably latch onto and never let go of - some measure of success is a foregone conclusion.

*Loca, Ninanajna et al. q.v.

Hungary

2009-04-19T10:58:00.003+03:00

Dance With Me Zoli Ádok

"It's an overload in a disco fantasy..."

There's only so long you can plough the same furrow at Eurovision before you realise it's not bearing any fruit. You can keep sowing the same seeds, or you can accept that the climate's not right for your chosen crop. You might have produced a pair of prize pumpkins over the years, but the rest have been lemons, and you're faced with a market that wants something you're not giving them. So what do you do? You follow Hungary's example: instead of the old turnip no one wanted, you offer them something the young'uns might go for. When you're told you're not allowed to do that, you revert to type and proffer something more traditional for the grown-ups. And when that's withdrawn from sale, you finally grasp that what your market wants is something altogether fruitier. So that's what you serve up. In musical terms, it's known as gay disco. In ESC09 terms, that means Ádokzoli and Dance With Me.

Described by a friend of mine as "more of a sound than a song", the Hungarian entry for Moscow is a surprisingly apt choice in a contest known for its fruity following - all the more so for the fact that it was broadcaster MTV's third. Having clearly decided to abandon the prim, old-fashioned path they took in 2008, they originally signed up twink Márk Zentai - Hungary's answer to Zac Efron - to perform the teen-friendly How We Party before being alerted to the song's having broken the rules for being sung by someone on Swedish Big Brother in 2006 (or something; it doesn't really matter what), at which they duly appointed their second choice Kátya Tompos as their Eurovision representative. Turns out the singer of the worthy if sombre Magányos Csónak would be too busy in May though, and the song was withdrawn, leaving MTV and the rest of Europe scratching their heads. With their pop departure and arthouse options squashed, where would they go next?

It's probably true to say that few people would have expected it to be the camp and kitsch route the contest has gained such a reputation from. Taking their time on their third and final reveal, MTV made sure that Dance With Me fell within the bounds of originality How We Party had not and that performer Zoltán Ádok would not be having his chest hair trimmed or his teeth bleached for those two weeks in May before unleashing the song on the world. Most people's reaction to it was positive, impressed by its expensive preview video in particular, but tempered by the fact that however original it was in terms of the Eurovision rules, it remained hugely derivative of the genre. This, combined with the retro feel of the song and Hungary's no-friends status in the contest (which would have made Magányos Csónak the perfect entry for them), has led most punters to doubt the song's chances.

I'll concede that Dance With Me is not the kind of thing that will necessarily do well at Eurovision, but I'm not as ambivalent about its potential as a lot of people seem to be. Ádokzoli comes across as the consummate performer, and in a run of uptempo songs where he finds himself in competition with Greece's Sakis Rouvas I'm at a loss to explain why so few people believe in his ability to pose a threat: there's no evidence he can't sing live, which we all know is Sakis' Achilles heel, and Dance With Me is not all that dissimilar to This Is Our Night. Both are as queer as folk, but at least Zoltán has no qualms about playing the role of "whopping great poofter"* the song demands. He can sing and dance at the same time, and he puts the 'Aryan' in Hungarian in a come-hither way that makes you go 'woof!'.** If that's not enough to sell the song, I don't know what is. I mean, if beanpole queen Deen could qualify in 2004 with the zesty In The Disco, what's to stop our Zoli?

*...as said friend of mine put it :)

**He may well put the 'hung' in Hungarian, too, but that's not for here ;-)

Slovenia

2009-04-19T07:42:00.003+03:00

Love Symphony Quartissimo feat. Martina

"Out of time, out of place..."

One of the biggest urban myths associated with Eurovision is the importance of the draw in determining a song's chances, and in particular the kiss of death that being drawn 2nd is meant to deliver. Sure, the #2 spot is notorious for never having produced a winner and littering the bottom of the scoreboard with one hopeless entry after another, but it's rarely if ever the draw in isolation that seals an entry's fate. The 2008 semis were enough to show that a song can still start from the slot and impress the viewers or jury enough to get through. Whether it's drawn 2nd or 22nd, the song itself and the performance it receives will largely decide it. That's certainly the case with this year's Slovenian entry, Love Symphony, drawn 10th. But then it's also true that it couldn't have received a more appropriate draw.

If the future of Quartissimo and token vocalist Martina Majerle lies in the hands of their song alone, they probably won't be all that chuffed to have landed smack bang in the middle of the semi with nine songs propping up both sides of Love Symphony. Few entries in the past have had INTERVAL ACT writ all over them quite as large as the Slovenian entry, which starts, continues and stops in the best traditions of true muzak. Not even the bridge, pinched wholesale from Leonard Bernstein, makes you sit up and take notice. In fact the only thing worth investing any of your energy in with Love Symphony is a couple of the string lads, who stand up to a second viewing much better than their song does. Not that it's a song really: it's Hooked On Classics, only more tacky.

Given a plum draw à la Cvet Z Juga in 2007, composer Andrej Babić might find the audience still gullible enough to fall for something like Love Symphony. As it stands, he may improve on his best placing (13th from four attempts), but only in this semi. Next.

Denmark

2009-04-19T07:00:00.005+03:00

Believe Again Brinck

"Though I look the same, I'm not as strong..."

There aren't many countries in Eurovision as dependable as Denmark. From their debut entry, 1957's Skibet Skal Sejle I Nat, through the disco days of the '70s and early '80s to the easy-listening '00s, they have always had a talent for the homespun and cosy. In recent years the supreme Danishness of their entries has only twice been denied, in the pseudo-Latino Shame On You from 2004 and the drag by name, drag by nature Drama Queen from 2007; everything else has been business as usual for the laid-back Scandinavians, and generally they've been rewarded for it. 2005 saw them return to the top ten with Talking To You, having come 3rd in the semi-final in Kyiv, a feat Simon Mathew repeated last year in Serbia with All Night Long. It's a result they could easily achieve this year in Moscow, with Brinck's Believe Again looking every bit the kind of song to earn them the top three approval of its Thursday night audience and a left-hand side of the scoreboard finish in the final.

Like most of Denmark's entries, Believe Again does nothing terribly innovative but does it very well. The country rarely has problems producing something solid, and if they do it usually coincides with a mediocre result. The slightly ironic thing about their 2009 entry is that it does sound so Danish, considering it was one-third (or more) written by Irishman Ronan Keating: it's either an achievement managing to retain the feel of the country's music, or indicative of Irish and Danish sensibilities when it comes to producing music being highly compatible. Either way it portends a good result, and not simply - if at all - because of its co-composer/lyricist. Believe Again would doubtless do well in either semi, but being in the same one as Ireland, neighbour Norway, the Baltic States and any number of other like-minded countries makes it one of this year's strongest contenders for qualification.

Then there's the fact that Mr Brinck sounds like he's modelling himself on Ronan Keating, which neither jars with the song nor harms its chances any. He even looks the part. Some people see him as the weakest link in the song, but it's easy to interpret his rattled national final performance - which was plagued by sound problems - as a lack of ability. To me at least there's a rawness to his delivery that suits Believe Again perfectly, in what is vocally a more demanding song than you might expect it to be. Besides, it's the kind of thing that will survive a wobble; he would have to turn it into a shouting match to ruin the song's chances, and coming straight after the Slovakian entry the audience is likely to be more forgiving. Certainly enough to see it make the final in any case, and at least go on to match Denmark's 2008 result. Believe Again is reliable and inoffensive without being faceless, and that's probably all it needs to be.

Vote in the prediction poll for the 2nd semi-final!

2009-04-19T06:53:00.001+03:00

The prediction poll for the 2nd semi-final will open shortly. Please note that it is a prediction poll and not a poll of your favourite entries. You should select the 10 songs you feel will qualify for Saturday night's final. The poll will close in a week's time, when the poll for the final - based on the results of this poll and the poll for the 1st semi - will open. Enjoy :)

Semi 1: poll results

2009-04-19T06:41:00.003+03:00

The prediction poll for the 1st semi-final is now closed and the results speak for themselves. The 'top ten' entries were all voted on by more than 60% of respondents, with only two others posing any threat to their dominance. So if the poll is any indication, Tuesday night's semi will see the following ten countries (in alphabetical order) qualify for the final:

- Armenia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Finland
- Iceland
- Malta
- Portugal
- Romania
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey

Israel and Montenegro were the only two on anything resembling a borderline, but the gap was significant. Things aren't looking good for the remaining six entries, with the Czech Republic and Belarus faring particularly poorly, receiving not a single vote. I'm still in two minds about Finland making it, but would otherwise agree.

The prediction poll for the 2nd semi-final will open shortly.

Slovakia

2009-04-17T16:34:00.003+03:00

Leť Tmou Kamil Mikulčík & Nela Pocisková

"Chvíľa straty, chvíľa strachu, keď sa nádej váľa v prachu..."

Since the expansion of the contest in 2004, Eurovision has seen the reappearance of some of its oldest participants and more recent alike, each of whom withdrew from the event for individual and perfectly valid reasons, and each of whom has returned to varying degrees of success. Serbia and Montenegro - what remained of Yugoslavia - took 12 years to return to the fold and, in the case of the former at least, has yet to not make the top ten, showing an aptitude for [and enjoying a level of support in] the contest that is undoubtedly the envy of many. Monaco, on the other hand, made a brief bid to recapture the glory days of the '70s and proved incapable of figuring out what new Eurovision was about, enjoying the support of nobody (except France and Andorra). 2009 sees another stray rejoin the flock: Slovakia, whose contribution to the contest amounts to three entries, a high score of 19 and a subsequent 10-year absence. In attempting to redress the balance, they have selected an entry that could well give them their best result to date: Kamil Mikulčík and Nela Pocisková's Leť Tmou.

After all, how hard can it be to pick up 20 points? With Leť Tmou the answer may be: very. If Hungary had returned to the contest in 2005 with their 2008 entry Candlelight rather than the shrewd and entertaining Forogj, Világ! we would have a clear precedent for how inept Slovakia's approach to their second coming has been. An entry you might have expected from the country (and the contest) in the 1990s - perhaps in one of the years the then recently independent nation was relegated for failing to impress anyone - Leť Tmou is a massive disappointment from STV, who had shown signs of getting what Eurovision today is about. Having waited this long to make a comeback, they put on a national final series which stood out for its professionalism at every level, including the technical and visual, right down to the requisite cute host pushing the core audience's buttons. Seldom has something promised so much and delivered so little.

The problems was the songs. All of the elements were there to make it look as though Slovakia had a clue, but the 50 entries the local televoters had to choose from, however impeccably produced, offered little in terms of either getting what Eurovision is about or (therefore) hope. Not that the Slovakian audience can be blamed for being out of touch, but given the selection, it was always going to come down to whoever was most popular at the time. This turned out to be the aforementioned Kamil and Nela with Leť Tmou, although how much the song had to do with it is another matter. The fact that the somewhat arbitrary jury in the national final agreed with the public's decision is probably more to do with pandering to the masses than them feeling that the song was the most appropriate choice, but even if not - and either way - it shows that Slovakia has a lot of catching up to do.

That process will clearly begin in Moscow. Leť Tmou would have to be very unlucky to fare as poorly as neighbours the Czech Republic did on their debut with Malá Dáma, but just as rude an awakening is a distinct possibility. Although the song could pick up points from the likes of Poland and Russia, the chances of its histrionics winning over most viewers are remote. Nela (and to a lesser but no less grating extent Kamil) may technically be able to deliver the complex vocals in the song, which may be in keeping with what the lyrics are saying, but not in a way that makes it anywhere near as attractive as, say, the fetching pastels the pair sport. As a piece of music Leť Tmou may be accomplished, but that doesn't alter the fact that it sounds about a hundred years old and takes a minute and a half to do anything other than descend into a screaming mess.

Well OK, the songs has its merits, and it's not the worst entry we'll hear in 2009. But the simple fact that Leť Tmou is at least ten years out of time makes it, at best, a wasted opportunity. It's as though Slovakia's participation in the contest was being held in suspended animation, rather than them taking time out to collect both themselves and the entry fee. It's difficult to take heart from anything to do with the country's return other than the broadcaster having already launched its 2010 campaign, perhaps realising just how wide of the mark they are with this entry. Let's just hope they twig the way they should, because those 20 points are by no means guaranteed. This year or next.

Cyprus

2009-04-17T15:43:00.003+03:00

Firefly Christina Metaxa

"Believe me, it's best to let go..."

A competition derided by established artists in many countries, Eurovision has gained a reputation as a showcase for new, little or no talent. While some broadcasters manage to convince popular acts to take part, a large number struggle to generate any enthusiasm for the contest among big names and end up settling for national finals populated by session singers and 'stars of the future'. At best they might persuade a known name to contribute a song, even if they refuse to be associated with it in anything other than name alone. This can lead to lopsided local victories, with the name earning the song the ticket to Eurovision rather than the song itself. All of this applies to the Cypriot entry in Moscow, Firefly: an unassuming and largely underwhelming song penned by a popular performer but entrusted to his sister, the inexperienced Christina Metaxa. It is, essentially, Junior Eurovision in disguise.

Firefly is the kind of earnest anthem you might expect from a contest heavy on the teenage entrants, with an accessible and undeniably cute central concept and a sense of urgency and import only the precocious can produce in such essays. Well, it's not that bad; it's certainly not as eye-rolling as Monaco's 2004 return Notre Planète or the Latvian lads musing in 2005 that The War Is Not Over. In fact its message and its medium have some lovely touches to them. There's just something very school-poetry-competition about the song that jars with 'grown-up' Eurovision. If it were representing Cyprus in this year's JESC in Ukraine I would have more time for it, probably; a grudging sort of respect. As it stands I only have three minutes for it, and it takes the better part of two of them to actually do anything. I don't know how they're going to stage it to (a) win and (b) keep the televoters' attention, especially after Norway's bouncy castle of a song, but that's pretty much all they'll have to rely on.

Because the biggest problem with Firefly is not the nauseating sentiment, nor the lack of incident, but the fact it's being fronted by a little girl. As lovely as Ms Metaxa is, she doesn't have the natural talent or the training she needs for a contest as cut-throat as Eurovision. Miracles will have to have been worked in the three months since February to turn her into a performer who can make enough of the song to convince the voters. CyBC may have been able to get her brother on board in a more pro-active role (damage limitation?) but there's little hope of his inclusion masking his sister's shortcomings on stage. Christina was modest enough to apologise for her nerves during the national final and promise to do better in Moscow, but we all know where good intentions alone get you in this contest. As baptisms of fire go, few burn as indiscriminately.

I think the best we can hope for from Cyprus this year - and indeed the best they can hope for from Christina Metaxa - is a solid if unremarkable performance that earns her a few points here and there other than the requisite 12 from Greece. They might be fantasising about a repeat of their 2004 result, with a well-meaning young lady doing her best on a nice song and ending up 5th, but Firefly is no Stronger Every Minute. The focus is all wrong, the singers are back-to-front and the song is so torn between two audiences that it is unlikely to earn the approval of either. It might all be sweetness and light, but Firefly's outlook is far from bright.

Norway

2009-04-15T17:39:00.005+03:00

Fairytale Alexander Rybak

"I'm already cursed..."

For a contest in which the odds are stacked in favour of a relatively small number of countries, very few (i.e. none) of them west of the Adriatic, Eurovision still manages to surprise by producing favourites and indeed winners from countries whose names end in something other than -ia. Finland's resounding victory in 2006 showed that if a song and performance captures the audience's imagination, however gimmicky the means, it can go all the way wherever it hails from. Of course, it helps if that's somewhere the contest goes out at 10.00 pm at the earliest, since they're places that are usually guaranteed support from their neighbours and more far-fling escapees. Failing that, you have to do pretty much what Norway's done this year: come up with an insanely perky song almost everyone is enthusiastic about, with a delightful and floppy-haired fusion of east and west (and in this case north) at the helm. Give it a veneer of national flavour which sounds like it could come from just about anywhere and voila: you've got Fairytale, the song being given the shortest odds on victory in ESC history.

This is both strange and disconcerting. Let's start with the former. However much of a no-brainer it is that Norway will qualify with Fairytale and in all likelihood vie for the coveted Eurosong title, its chances of winning remain no better than 1 in 42, at least until the end of the 1st semi, when they will improve to 1 in 34, and then very probably to 1 in 25 after Thursday night. It arguably - or at least mathematically - has no more of a chance at the outset than the likes of the Polish and Cypriot entries that bookend it. And yet the bookmakers are offering the kind of odds that will almost see you paying them if it wins. Mind you, they also have Montenegro at about 3 to 1, so you've got to question their judgement, or would have to if you didn't know better. And that's the thing: on paper Fairytale might be no better placed than I Don't Wanna Leave or Firefly, but in practice we all know it has more going for it than just about any other entry this year. It has the look, it has the sound, it has the charm: it's just got that something about it that makes it favourite material.

But something still has to come second, and there are only so many points on offer. What must be off-putting for Norway and jack-of-all-trades Alexander Rybak at this point is the massive momentum that has built up around Fairytale, as humbling as it must also be. Fan favourites fall flat as often as they stroll to victory, as Sweden's Charlotte Perrelli can attest from her trip to Belgrade. Hero and Fairytale may be poles apart as songs, but their appeal is not all that dissimilar, with many fans citing the Norwegian entry's fundamental Eurovisionness as a major drawcard. It didn't work for Sweden though, and Norway must be wondering whether the status they've earned is a curse or a blessing. On balance you'd have to suspect the latter, since Fairytale is likely to appeal to viewers from his Scandinavian stamping ground all the way to his ancestral home of Belarus and beyond. Oslo 2010 probably is the safest bet in years, but stranger things have happened. This is Eurovision, after all.

Poland

2009-04-15T17:10:00.004+03:00

I Don't Wanna Leave Lidia Kopania

"Don't you know this is meant to be..."

It's no fun being an outsider at the best of times, but it's got to be a frustrating experience in something as ruthless as Eurovision. Lonely, too, trying to fit in as best you can and being consistently shunned, until you just tag along for the sake of it or give up altogether. Not many countries fit into this category, and even some of them that do boast at least one result in the televoting era to mitigate their otherwise overlooked contribution to the contest. With Poland, if we're honest, that's been largely hit and miss: the country seems to have struggled to adjust to the demands of pleasing the audience rather than a bunch of juries, with nary a mark made on the upper reaches of the scoreboard since their (almost) all-conquering debut in 1994. They will be hoping to reverse their meagre fortunes in Moscow with the lovely Lidia Kopania and her big ballad I Don't Wanna Leave, but all the indications are that they'll be out of there by Friday morning.

Which is not a reflection on the song itself, as such. Poland has always stood out as perhaps the hardest done-by Eastern country in the contest, with very little support being shown to it even by its nearest and dearest. Under the current split semi system the hole they have to claw their way out of - while many others are still being given a helping hand - is all the deeper. They managed to last year, with the not entirely dissimilar For Life, but having gotten that far fell straight back in again, ending joint last with a handful of points thrown their way by the diaspora alone. Making the final is no small achievement, but they would have been expecting more, and will so again in Moscow. The problem they face is in getting there to start with; as nice as I Don't Wanna Leave is, there's no escaping the fact that it's horribly easy to overlook.

This is unfortunate, if not ironic, since the song stood out in its national final (to me at any rate) as the obvious choice. But the transition from its cosy local setting to the European stage robs it of much of the power it has, especially given its draw and followed by the overall favourite for victory. It doesn't help that Ms Kopania has yet to give anything other than a merely competent performance of the song; the ballad I Don't Wanna Leave is requires more to truly sell it than she appears capable of delivering. Mind you, that's what I said about the Cypriot entry in 2006, and look at the power Annet Artani poured into that. (She had fantastic gospel-lite backing vocalists though, which is what Poland desperately needs this year.)

But the fact that Why Angels Cry fared so poorly, despite the vocal wonders worked on it, in front of what was the nearest thing to a home crowd Cyprus has ever had at Eurovision, doesn't bode well for the Polish entry. I Don't Wanna Leave might not have the same imperious anthem pretentions, but its narrower focus might not help either. It's in a bugger of a semi-final to qualify from when you're on the outer pretty much every way you look at it, so I expect Lidia and the delegation will be having to make their farewells well before the final. They might not want to leave, but the televoters and juries might not give them any choice.

Serbia

2009-04-14T15:23:00.003+03:00

Cipela Marko Kon & Milaan

"Hvata me panika..."

Considering the nature of Eurovision, what it represents and the profile of your average [avid] follower, it's surprising how conservative a lot of fans of the contest are. Give them an entry that ticks all the boxes - whether it's a traditional ballad like Iceland's Is It True? or outright trash like Montenegro's Just Get Out Of My Life - and they'll nod sagely, approving its place in the line-up for adhering to expectations. But throw in a few props and a kooky hairdo and suddenly it's a novelty entry (which are just as much a part of the modern contest as any genre). It's a label that's all too flippantly applied, often when it shouldn't be, as is the case with this year's Serbian entry Cipela.

And again it comes back to the packaging: the nation's third solo entry in the contest is not nearly as awkward as the Latvian song that precedes it, but dressed as it is has people scratching their heads and asking "so if it's not a novelty entry, what is it?". Cipela, while by no means your run-of-the-mill ballad, is actually a fairly straightforward song about missed opportunities, and could easily have been taken down a more obvious route. But that doesn't make it an oddity: it just means they've been more inventive in their approach. Singer Marko Kon's appearance might not rate in the strait-laced stakes, but Cipela is no more a novelty because of it than it is for its tone, lyrics or arrangement. Or for the accordion or the suitcase. I mean, Hungary's 2007 entry Unsubstantial Blues had more glaring props.

What Cipela is, in fact, is a catchy, upbeat number that's a major detour from Serbia's previous entries, and that might be what's throwing people most. Whether it throws the audience as well remains to be seen, although I suspect not: the majority wouldn't take that much notice. It will, inevitably, be interpreted as something of a novelty act by most viewers, so Serbia will have to hope they don't drift away from it as realisation dawns that it's not the piss-take they may have been hoping for. If the televoters are as conservative as some of the fans they could just fall for its simple charms, since it has a sound that should appeal to a broad slice of audience. The novelty in Cipela would be its not qualifying, probably, and although that's a possibility, it ought to entertain enough viewers - whatever their expectations - to take that extra step.

Latvia

2009-04-14T14:20:00.003+03:00

Probka Intars Busulis

"Nyeprastaya eta zabava..."

Awkward is not the thing to be at Eurovision. Awkward artists earn the wrath of the audience, and awkward songs tend to go nowhere. An awkward approach rarely gives you the result you're looking for, and awkward packaging only confuses people. It is bizarre to find then that there isn't a single entry in 2009 more awkward than Probka - not because of the song as such, but because it comes from Latvia, a country that in recent years has shown itself incapable of selecting an entry that isn't twee and/or tacky and/or well-attuned to the needs of the contest. From its timing to its tortuous route to Moscow, Probka seems neither designed nor destined for Eurovision success - and is bound to be misunderstood and underappreciated by virtually everyone.

Suffice it to say that is also what makes it so brilliant. It is complex and meaningful, but better than that, it is entire: a complete package of music, lyrics and performance. Like the Lithuanian entry Strazdas, it is fated to be written off by people who lack the inclination to try to appreciate what a dense and clever three minutes it represents. The fidgety signature and shifts in aural focus are perfectly in tune with what the lyrics are saying, a trait the song shares with its forerunner, the equally quirky Gonki from the 2007 Latvian final. The vocal approach Intars Busulis takes to the song is again very much in keeping with the feel of Probka and what it is saying, as is his ADD style of performing. If the staging and lighting designers don't go a bit berserk on this, they're missing the point.

But fair dos, the point of your average Eurosong is not to require deconstruction for general appreciation. Nor though is their any reason to snub quality because you don't get it. If you don't like it, fine, but here in particular Probka - or rather the Latvian team behind it - is shrewdness itself. Choosing to perform in Moscow 100% in Russian (the only country to do so) might seem like an odd move for Latvia to have made, but it in fact makes a lot of sense: blessed with a draw in which they are surrounded by their neighbours, the home base of a large proportion of their diaspora and various other countries in which Russian or similar is spoken, they may hoover up votes with an efficiency that takes everyone by surprise. Well, everyone bar those who have thought about such things and think it's fab enough to deserve to, anyway.

In political terms, however, the language issue with Probka remains the most awkward thing about the whole song. Latvia might be on a firmer footing with Russia than its neighbours, and might have a higher number of Russian speakers among its resident population, but you've still got to wonder how your average Latvian feels about being represented by a song in the language of the power that oppressed them and their own for so many years. Mind you, the fact that Sastrēgums even survived to become Probka and make it to Eurovision at all might see them grateful, as I would be for a song of its quality to be flying the flag for my country. I'd still rather it be in Latvian, but you can't fault their strategy. And it is essentially a sponsored entry, so the man on the street probably doesn't get much of a say in the matter.

For any country to produce a song as integral as Probka at Eurovision is achievement enough; for it to come from Latvia, in a year when it could so easily not have come at all, makes it all the more impressive. Awkward it is, but you can give me something this stimulating over the likes of the more two-dimensional Irish entry any day. Sauraj Latvija!

Ireland

2009-04-14T13:52:00.003+03:00

Et Cetera Sinéad Mulvey & Black Daisy

"I've heard that oh so many times.."

You should never underestimate the importance of knowing your audience at Eurovision. A phenomenon with a disproportionately large gay following it may be, but the core of the target audience in an era where televoting holds such power is the text-addicted teenage market, predominantly girls. With the reintroduction of the juries, composers now also have to take the arguably (or at least preferably) more mature tastes of music professionals into account, or provide them with something they'll feel relatively comfortable with. Striking a balance between the two cannot be easy, despite the permutations, but the team behind this year's Irish entry Et Cetera have done a pretty good job of it - giving the kids a song with all the appeal of High School Musical and going totally eighties on the rest of the audience at the same time.

A crossover entry in a number of ways, Et Cetera has a world-weary pubescent attitude to it that will nevertheless resonate with anyone ever jilted in their formative years (especially if they coincided with the female pop/rock explosion of the mid-to-late 1980s). Given a fun, confident performance by Sinéad Mulvey and the slightly dowdy, slightly wooden Black Daisy - one which flicks a great big 'whatever' in the direction of all two-timing arseholes everywhere - the audience may just urge them on. Quite apart from which, there is enough about Et Cetera to also grab your average Eurovision fan, with a simple melody that sticks in your head almost instantly and a quintessential key change.

And yet they are the very reasons I'm doubting its chances. As competent as Et Cetera is, it is far from groundbreaking, and it is the kind of song that could very easily fall flat if it doesn't come together in precisely the way it should. Ireland haven't been helped by the draw either, coming this early on and followed immediately by the just as noisy but more offbeat Latvian entry. The fact that one third of the ESC line-up of Black Daisy is Lithuanian might secure the song double digits from Vilnius (repaying the compliment for once), but thereafter support may dwindle. It will come down to how well attuned Et Cetera is to its Thursday night audience, and how sympathetic they are to its plight. It is, after all, a song we've heard many times before.

Croatia

2009-04-11T10:11:00.004+03:00

Lijepa Tena Igor Cukrov feat. Andrea

"Umorne oči odmaraš, začaraš..."

'Timeless' is not a word people often use in praise of Eurovision entries. It generally applies to anything towards the ballad end of the scale, and is usually a diplomatic synonym for "doesn't make any effort to sound contemporary whatsoever". Which is not a bad thing per se, since in production terms at least they remain modern takes on classic sounds, with today's technology bringing out the best in any well-structured composition. This is very much the case with the Croatian entry for Moscow, Lijepa Tena, which opens the 2nd semi-final with none of the trashy sensibilities of its near-neighbour and fellow opener Montenegro: a delightful slice of Adriatic yesteryear, it is a perfect song to listen to over and over again, but may lack the immediacy it needs to convince viewers.

Coming straight after actual neighbours Bosnia and Herzegovina in the running order, if separated by two nights and an entire semi, Croatia shows as much of a talent for acoustic and percussive layering with Lijepa Tena, whilst being about as different from Bistra Voda as they could possibly be. Their entry is another song made for headphones and repeated listens, each one throwing up a new aspect of the arrangement and orchestration to marvel at. Whether this depth of sound reaches the audience (and whether they appreciate it) is one thing; whether the sheer Croatianness of it translates is another. It should: Lijepa Tena, like almost all of the country's entries, couldn't come from anywhere else, but has the kind of sound that crosses borders further than just the other side of the Danube.

Of course, the audience being sold on the song has less to do with how it sounds in and of itself and more to do with how crooner Igor Cukrov makes it sound - and here we come to the crux of the problem Lijepa Tena will have to overcome. Archetypal ballads need someone delivering them who can do so without making the audience go "ooh, had enough of that". Igor has a fine voice for this kind of song, but possibly not the wont to rein it in, and as a result treads an equally fine line. The addition of the lovely Andrea is a good idea in theory, but her vocals may well eclipse the lead singer's and/or underscore their weaknesses. Ms Šušnjara is undoubtedly a trump card for the song, but for Croatia's sake she and Mr Cukrov will need to have fine-tuned their approach to Lijepa Tena to really get it across to viewers the way it deserves to be.

That said, the song's fate is hard to predict even if they perform the pants off it. The very nature of Lijepa Tena could see it win widespread approval, but its obvious roots could restrict its appeal to its own corner of the world -which, while not insubstantial, may not be enough to earn it an onward ticket to the final. If it is done justice on stage I would like to see it there, since it is a quality entry, and probably Croatia's most accessible in European terms of the last five years. Timeless it may be, but then it's been many a year since Eurovision was a product of its time.

Semi 2

2009-04-11T09:20:00.003+03:00

The 2nd semi-final is almost the opposite of the 1st, with more ballads and anthems earlier in the run and the final five songs all being uptempo to one degree or another. This will probably favour those in the second half of the draw more than it did in the 1st semi (even if it ends up producing more qualifiers!) and could lead to a major imbalance in which half of the semi our finalists emerge from.

While three of the six songs in the first third of the draw do have more potential to qualify than the others, only one is virtually guaranteed: fan favourite Norway, whose relentlessly upbeat number has the bookies offering some of the shortest odds on overall victory in the contest's history. Meanwhile, the Serbian entry is in a position to garner enough support from its region and diaspora, while the chances of Latvia doing well - despite being virtually the opposite of Norway: next to no one's favourite - should not be underestimated.

After two more measured and largely forgettable entries the mid-section of the semi starts to throw up more probable qualifiers, with the Danish entry looking like one of the strongest contenders in the field given its easy-listening appeal. Slap bang in the middle of the draw, Slovenia may struggle, especially with Hungary, Azerbaijan and Greece battling it out amongst themselves to see who gets a ticket to the final. The audience may well find it too hard and simply choose to promote all three of them.

After a Lithuanian entry we can only hope the juries will rescue, the last third of the draw cranks up a notch further with ethnopop, Europop and Eurotrash entries from Moldova, Albania and Ukraine that could all do well enough to qualify, although Ukraine is a much safer bet given the nature of the song and performance and its placement in the draw. The Estonian entry it is followed by has an ethereal and almost mesmerising quality which could just as easily capture the viewers' imagination.

As with the 1st semi, the fact that the voting set-up is the same as in 2008 means that picking certain qualifiers is easier than others, but with many songs competing (often back-to-back) with similar entries here the final ten is more of a challenge to predict at this point. Which is a good thing, I might add. I'll put in my two cents' worth as to who I think they might be once I've reviewed each of the songs individually.

Vote in the prediction poll for the 1st semi-final!

2009-04-10T13:30:00.001+03:00

The prediction poll for the 1st semi-final will open shortly. Please note that it is a prediction poll and not a poll of your favourite entries. You should select the 10 songs you feel will qualify for Saturday night's final. The poll will close in a week's time, when the poll for the 2nd semi-final will open. But why wait :)

Semi 1: overview

2009-04-10T11:27:00.002+03:00

Giving each of the songs in the 1st semi-final the once over - for want of a term even slightly closer to the truth - has seen a shift in my thinking that the qualifiers may represent a fairly even spread of Tuesday night fare. My bias, as in 2008, now favours the rear end of the draw.

Listening to all 18 songs together, I'm starting to wonder whether any from the first third of the show have strong chances other than Armenia. Lent the kind of performances they need, the Czech Republic and Belgium may fight it out for one of the lower qualifying spots; Sweden's chances rest on the audience's mood for an early dose of popera (or the juries once again comprising far too many Eurovision fans). I can't see either Montenegro or Belarus qualifying.

Something strange would have to happen in the middle of the semi for Turkey not to stroll through to Saturday, and I can see the reprieve-starved audience latching on to the simple charms of Iceland, but beyond that this section may also provide a dearth of finalists. I still suspect Switzerland will make it, albeit perhaps not convincingly. As inoffensive as Andorra is, it remains a contender for the lower reaches of the scoreboard.

The closing set of the 1st semi is where I see almost half of its qualifiers coming from. Bosnia and Herzegovina is as safe a bet as Turkey or Armenia, and Romania's not far behind. I can see Portugal receiving enough widespread (if generally modest) support to belie its parochial charms and move forward to the final, with Finland and/or Malta joining them if the performances strike the right note.

Which is basically what I said last year, just changing the names here and there :) It's difficult not to repeat yourself, really: predictions are hard enough to make solely on the basis of studio versions, let alone when you've had them on repeat for anywhere up to four months, and especially when it's the performances on the night that count for everything. You might get a feel for whether something's going to work generally, but you can only ever be confident about things, never certain of them. There's no point to making predictions, of course, and in fact if you don't take any I-told-you-so glee from being spot on, being proven right can be more depressing than anything else.

That said (and I will copy and paste here!), the following are the countries whose names I predict will be in the ten envelopes at the end of the night. Personal preference doesn't come into it; it's based on the assumption that all 18 performances are equally good and equally attractive in their own right; I make no distinction between the nine that qualify through televoting and the jury wildcard; and they're in alphabetical order rather than any anticipated ranking.

- Armenia
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Iceland
- Malta
- Portugal
- Romania
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey

Although thinking about it, it's pretty much a free-for-all before you've even got five. My personal preferences would see the Czech Republic, Andorra and Israel replacing Malta, Sweden and Turkey, and FYR Macedonia maybe even edging out Armenia. Or not. As ever, so much will depend on what they all make of themselves on stage. Our perspectives might change completely once the set reports start filtering in from Moscow. Can't wait!

Bosnia and Herzegovina

2009-04-10T10:50:00.004+03:00

Bistra Voda Regina

"Nemaš sutra, nemaš danas, lako je, kad ti pjesma srce nađe..."

For an institution more than half a century old, Eurovision is not especially sentimental. Ever since televoting was introduced it has sought to unite Europe in a night (then two) (now three) of harmless entertainment whose values perhaps reflect a more innocent bygone era, but televoting itself has only served to further politicise the event. Some countries - including several in this 1st semi-final - may return to points in their own lives in the contest, but few entries overall have spoken directly to the audience's nostalgia for the way things used to be. (At least not since the 1970s, when Monaco jacked it in and took such la-la reminiscing with them.) One country will be bucking this trend in Moscow: Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose entry Bistra Voda speaks to both the politics and yearning of potentially a great many of the contest's viewers.

Needless to say, this frontline starts somewhere east of Switzerland and extends more or less to the border of Kazakhstan, where anybody with an ability to influence the result will be in REM sleep long before Regina get the chance to ensnare them with their brilliantly constructed propaganda. I'll admit that the red flag-waving importance of Bistra Voda has been overplayed, but there's no denying that the style and substance of the song will appeal to a certain Eurovision demographic more than it will another. It won't hurt the song's chances that it's being performed down the road from the Kremlin, the historical heart of a doctrine whose passing an inordinate number of people still mourn. I suppose it's the ideals at the heart of the song that make it attractive, rather than the ideology it is perhaps unjustly associated with. Well, that and the fact it's a little triumph.

Whoever wrote Bistra Voda, they know how to produce a song in about 47 different parts and put it together so that it works as a cogent whole. Anyone with an appreciation of multi-layered composition (if not politics) should immerse themselves in these three minutes and listen to them over and over again, counting off the number of new elements they discover each time. A masterclass in acoustics and percussion, it is one of the most rewarding songs Eurovision has given us in a long time, with its arrangement reflecting both the clear waters of the title and the deeper meaning of its lyrics. Juries who know their music should love it, even if the viewers on the side of the continent the song is less likely to mean anything to don't.

Along with Armenia, Turkey and Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina is virtually assured a place among the qualifiers from the 1st semi, and in Regina's case at least I'd say it was completely deserved. Whatever its underlying message might be and regardless of whose sense of nostalgia it addresses, it is simply one of the best songs of the year. It may be hampered slightly by the fact that it takes you some time to realise this, but with juries involved in the final I certainly can't see it doing any worse than 2007 and 2008's Rijeka Bez Imena and Pokušaj. It may not recapture the glory days of 2006 and Lejla's podium finish, but every sentiment I have is telling me that in Bistra Voda we have our first sure-fire top 10 entry of 2009.

Malta

2009-04-09T15:58:00.003+03:00

What If We Chiara

"If you don't know your destination, who determines your destiny?"

If Eurovision had a favourite fish dish, it would be cod. Since the free language rule was reintroduced in 1999, every year has seen one or more countries serving up cod-philosophy in this anthem or that, many of them in cod-English. One country here has had an advantage over its competitors since well before the language requirement was dropped: Malta, the bastion of garbled English, which has been hooking audiences with cleverly disguised bait ever since it returned to the contest in 1991. With a mindset as peculiar as their use of language, they have bestowed upon Eurovision a number of dodgy anthems, adding to the list in Moscow with their 2009 entry What If We.

The fact that the song was penned by a pair of Belgians is happenstance, or perhaps serendipity, since it suits Malta down to the ground. It may well have been written specifically for Chiara, who makes another appearance at the contest having finished 3rd and 2nd on her earlier attempts. With a voice as big as her presence, Ms Siracusa is not one to underestimate: neither of her previous entries seemed particularly ambitious or set to make much of an impact prior to the 1998 and 2005 contests, but in the latter especially she proved more than capable of giving the kind of performance that will lift a middle-of-the-road song and place it within reach of victory.

That's why I'm hesitant to rule What If We out of contention simply because many feel it lacks immediacy and comes across as mediocre. Most seem to agree that it is the weakest of Chiara's entries to date, but she is not competing against herself: her chances are entirely dependent on the other fish in her basket. In that sense she is well-placed, since What If We has the lift and drive that an entry second-to-last in a semi-final probably needs to make it across the line. And the song itself is no slouch - with the vocal and musical arrangements drawn separately but working together very effectively - so any jury with a soft spot for big lasses singing well-meaning songs should lap it up.

What If We might be a throwback to Malta's la-di-da heyday of Little Child, More Than Love and Let Me Fly, but that may not be such a bad thing with Chiara at the helm. In fact it's quite possibly a dangerous combination. Let's face it, 99% of viewers will be seeing these songs for the first time on the night, of whom 99% won't care what she's singing about (however obviously missing the point it is - see quote above), so if she makes it as massive as she is, lots of people will probably go for it. Cod-anything is unremarkable though by its very nature, and as such I remain to be convinced that it deserves a place on the Saturday night table.

Portugal

2009-04-09T15:06:00.003+03:00

Todas As Ruas Do Amor Flor-de-Lis

"Sou a voz do coração numa carta aberta ao mundo..."

There aren't many countries in Eurovision that have been as frequently and unfairly overlooked as sunny, pine-scented Portugal. Over the years they have given the contest some of its most poetic entries, set amid swaying stalks of golden corn and along coastlines peppered with picturesque Portugueseness. No other nation has stuck as proudly to the now largely defunct requirement for its songs to exhibit some national flavour, and in doing so it has made the top 10 just nine times in more than 40 attempts and never troubled the top 5: as learners they are either very slow or very principled. Either way, 2009 once again sees them attempting to win the hearts of the European audience with a song that couldn't come from any other country: the gloriously colourful Todas As Ruas Do Amor.

Flor-de-Lis should take some solace from the fact that Portugal's best ever result at Eurovision came in 1996 with the equally charming and upbeat O Meu Coração Não Tem Cor and that its most recent crack at the top ten came in the form of their entry of two years later, Alma Lusa's similarly themed Se Eu Te Pudesse Abraçar. In fact, bookended in the 1st semi by Finland and Malta, Todas As Ruas Do Amor forms part of a trilogy that harks back to the 1990s in a number of ways. Unlike the preceding Finnish entry, which is a perfect specimen of the kind of '90s music we never got at ESC, the Portuguese song is a perfect example of the kind of '90s music that made the decade one of the more successful for the country at the contest.

Uncomplicated without being simple and straightforward without being one-dimensional, Todas As Ruas Do Amor is likely to appeal to far more viewers than just those in neighbouring Spain and Andorra. Its delightful orchestration should strike chords from the shores of the Atlantic across the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba, while standing it in good stead with juries for its effectiveness and lightness of touch. The fact that it sounds like nothing else in the entire contest - let alone the 1st semi - would suggest that if the audience are going to go for it at all, they'll go for it in a big way. With a memorable performance, Portugal may at long last be looking at its first top 5 finish.

Of course, that's precisely where Flor-de-Lis could come unstuck. Gone are the days when your Lúcia Monizes could do nothing other than be perky behind a microphone with a ukulele and expect it to translate into lots of points; not in the televoting era. And yet lead singer Daniela Varela seems as stuck for staging ideas as Alma Lusa's Inês Santos, making do with a couple of twirls and a bit of clapping. Whether this will be enough to engage an audience already treated to men on stilts and girls in hotpants is anyone's guess: we can only hope so. I'm certainly not advocating an overweening production number that detracts from the charm out of the song. As sunny, upbeat folk songs go, Todas As Ruas Do Amor is one of Portugal's best, and deserves to do well on its own merits.

Finland

2009-04-09T14:28:00.004+03:00

Lose Control Waldo's People

"I don't wanna live a lie - is this my reality?"

Given the 1990s were by and large a barren wasteland of popular music in Eurovision, it's no surprise that some countries are still playing catch-up. With your choice of genres limited to about three by ideas of what would appeal to the juries, anything resembling contemporary chart material stood out at the contest, and was generally frowned upon, only making a breakthrough towards the end of the decade when the focus shifted to televoting. One country that tried - and failed - to break the mould sooner was Finland, whose 1994 entry Bye Bye Baby was sapped of all strength by the orchestra and finished a miserable (if uniform) 22nd. With the bass blasting and few if any concerns about the music being messed up in Moscow, our 2007 hosts will be hoping to fare better with Waldo's People and Lose Control.

Drawn at the tail end of the 1st semi, one in which they have very little direct competition, you'd have to think Finland's chances of qualification were fairly high. Ironically, Lose Control is almost as conspicuous in this field as Bye Bye Baby was in the ballad-heavy line-up at the Point Theatre, which may work in its favour considering it is followed by three comparatively demure entries and is likely to receive as vocally solid a performance as it did on each of the many occasions it was repeated in the national final. Its only real rival is Bulgaria's Illusion, but taking into account that song's chances of going pear-shaped, Finland could trounce them convincingly. Even if you're not a fan of the '90s revival they're peddling, you can't deny the ease with which the chorus sticks in your head after hearing it just the once.

The big challenge facing Waldo's People in Moscow is related to a Bulgarian entry, but not this year's: similar in sound and style to 2008's DJ, Take Me Away, the problem Lose Control may have is overcoming the audience's all-too-obvious apathy for pretty much anything which emulates another era. Since they have a more memorable song, Finland will have to hope that the televoting masses aren't so dismissive, but the general lack of support the country receives means it is probably the worst-placed of the last five in the 1st semi to make it to the final. Should they fall at the first hurdle, I hope it doesn't discourage the Finns from trying different things: having exhausted their hard rock potential with their last three entries, they should be looking to bring something new to the contest. Even if 'new' only means 'the nineties we never had'.

Romania

2009-04-07T13:39:00.005+03:00

The Balkan Girls Elena Gheorghe

"I'm gonna start my weekend with gin, tonic and lime..."

In making the transition from old school Eurovision to 21st century showmanship few countries have abandoned half-measures with as much alacrity as Romania. Be it with booming vocals or bombastic visuals (or both), they have turned their back on the sedate start they made to the contest and consistently accosted viewers with songs and performances where the emphasis was clearly on making a mark. From cartoon striptease through blue-collar warehouse disco to caricature sketch comedy, the country has proven remarkably apt at ensnaring the audience's attention, one way or another. They have also revealed a penchant, on the whole, for top-shelf Eurotrash. Not surprisingly, their entry for Moscow - Elena Gheorghe's The Balkan Girls - showcases all this and more in three minutes of hotpants hedonism.

While the 'all this' focuses on the pop credentials and potential of The Balkan Girls, the 'and more' bit refers to the fact that the song is just as canny a piece of music as any that has seen Romania in or taken them to the final in each of the past seven contests. One of the greatest strengths of the country's entries since they joined in 1994 is that even those positioned or perceived as less serious (in terms of contention or delivery) have had foundations as strong as their more successful stablemates, and this year's entry is no exception. It would be simple to scoff at a song whose message is no more complicated than "going out is fun" if the way it was packaged was just as brainless, but there's too much to like about the way The Balkan Girls is put together to dismiss it that easily.

In fact there are elements of subtlety to the song that are in stark contrast to the more direct approach taken by some of its predecessors: the bridge in particular, but also the vocals, and the arrangement as a whole, which offers you more each time you listen to it. Not that I'm expecting a country like Romania to play down the partyfabulousness of their entry; their flair for a memorable performance will undoubtedly be on display. If the vocals aren't massive, the visuals probably will be, and should Elena be clad in anything other than high heels, glitter and little else bar a Farah Fawcett hairdo, I'll be shocked and appalled.

As a proper Saturday night song, the only hurdle to qualification I see The Balkan Girls having to overcome is convincing the Tuesday night audience that they should make an early start on the G&Ts. Given this is Eurovision we're talking about, though, that shouldn't be a problem. Allying herself with her dancefloor-loving sisters from Bulgaria to Montenegro* (and by televoter extension to the Iberian peninsula), Ms Gheorghe putting in an even more bombtastic turn in the final is pretty much a formality. And though it might not help them much in terms of votes when they do turn up, we'd be hard pressed to find a better contest opener. After all, if Elena's hips are ready to glow, who are we to get in her way?

* I guess The Carpathian Girls wouldn't have scanned. Isn't Romania claiming Balkan status in Eurovision about as tenuous as Austria suggesting it's still interested in the contest?

FYR Macedonia

2009-04-07T11:39:00.004+03:00

Nešto Što Kje Ostane Next Time

"Da ne si ti, bi nemal so što pred lugjeto da se pofalam..."

Yeah yeah! There's not much point to a rock song at Eurovision if it hasn't got a decent hook, is there. If you're lucky, like Turkey, you can do something perplexing and wonderful like Deli and rely on the diaspora to give it the result it deserves; if you're unlucky, like Iceland, you can come up with something as powerful and poetic as Valentine Lost and watch it sink like a stone. Alternatively, you can do a Belarus and give the world, unblinking and unfazed, something as unfashionable as Eyes That Never Lie. But in musical terms, what Macedonia are doing in Moscow is essentially a Norway 2005: Next Time's Nešto Što Kje Ostane is the solid slice of rock from another era with a decent hook that should, by rights, see the audience cheering them on for all they're worth.

Unfortunately, brothers Martin and Stefan Filipovski take it, and themselves, seriously. Where Wig Wam revelled in the camp entertainment value of In My Dreams, the Macedonian lads - and that's precisely what they are: they must have a combined age of about 12 - are like a tribute band to everything that was wrong about 1980s rock music, right down to the big hair and flannelette styling. I can't help but think that if only they were prepared to send themselves up rather than play it straight, your average Eurovision viewer might just be inclined to go along with it.

Which is not to say that they won't anyway, to some extent at least - even if Next Time do deliver Nešto Što Kje Ostane with the kind of professional earnestness usually reserved for bands twice their age desperate to cling onto their youth - because the song itself is as solid as any FYRoM has given us at ESC. In fact it is a bit of a departure for them: to date they have cornered the well-produced R'n'B and well-produced ethno ballad markets, and now they can add well-produced (if slightly slavish) retro rock to the list. They don't put a foot wrong where the music is concerned: the song provides everything you would expect one of its ilk to. That, though, only makes you wish they wouldn't treat it all so soberly.

Indeed, the approach the former Yugoslav republic is taking with this entry is a bit hard to make out. Seemingly determined to make it as authentic as possible and thereby running the risk of alienating the part of the audience who'd rather they weren't taking it that seriously, they then choose to present Nešto Što Kje Ostane in its original Macedonian, further sealing themselves off in their own little world. Now I'm not one to advocate the use of English for its own sake, but here it might help. As borderline qualifiers in even the worst case scenario you have to wonder at their tactics.

All of that aside, I really like the song. It has a great hook and a neat arrangement, and as disconcerting as it occasionally is, a genuineness you've got to admire. Can't see it qualifying though.

Iceland

2009-04-06T06:19:00.005+03:00

Is It True? Yohanna

"There's no use in trying, no need to pretend..."

There are few riskier moves in your approach to Eurovision than to be content to be unassuming, if it can be called a move at all. The history of the contest is a musical battleground littered with the bodies not only of the kinds of songs and performances that make you wonder what they were thinking in the first place, but like as not a lot of solid and well-staged entries, secure in their MOR charm and unruffled by their inability to impress. Regardless of how good a song is, juries and especially televoters will tend to overlook it if the only reaction it inspires is "that was nice". Some manage to get beyond that and actually say something to the viewers, and that is what Iceland will be hoping to do in Moscow with Is It True?, the first real ballad of 2009.

The good news for Iceland is that Is It True? is not merely a good song: it is a textbook ballad with perfect vocals from performer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, who radiates artless beauty. More than that, it has next to no rivals in the 1st semi, with its biggest competition coming in the forms of of the Israeli and Maltese anthems - with which it could sweep the floor if Yohanna manages to connect with the audience and lift the song in the same way Shiri Maimon did with Hasheket Shenish'ar in 2005. Given the quality of the vocalists she is being supported by, there is little doubt the song will sound as good as it needs to; the test is in bridging the emotional gap some people have identified in her delivery and resonating with viewers who might otherwise approve of the song without actually endorsing it.

If Is It true? makes it to the final it should bode well for Iceland, with the potential for it to go on and give the country its best result in a decade. It's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that the juries will go for a ballad, but then there's no reason to assume otherwise either when the ballad in question is as seamless and multi-layered as this. Its message is also more universal than other Icelandic entries have been, meaning it may penetrate further into Eastern Europe - a no man's land of Eurovision points for the country - and receive a unanimously warm welcome. If it speaks to the audience but they choose not to respond, it will be a true loss to this year's contest. I can only hope that if left out in the cold once again the Icelandic team will be content to have given it their best shot.

Bulgaria

2009-04-06T05:42:00.003+03:00

Illusion Krassimir Avramov

"It feels so wrong..."

Some countries seem incapable of choosing a song or singer for Eurovision without becoming embroiled in a national scandal, but none is quite as consistent at it as Bulgaria. Still a relative newcomer to the contest, none of its entries to date has managed to be selected without generating melodrama or controversy. What is particularly impressive about this year's backbiting, however, is that the Bulgarian broadcaster is almost single-handedly responsible for it. Whereas a delegation would normally deflect or defend criticism of its artist or entry, BNT was the first to level it at overwhelming public favourite Krassimir Avramov and the touché-worthy Illusion. Never before has a broadcaster been so vocal in its lack of support for and belief in its chosen performer.

And fair dos to them: rarely has there been so much scope for so many things to go even more spectacularly wrong than they already have. It's not pulling any punches to say that the term 'car crash television' seems to have been coined for Illusion; you haven't even donned your boxing gloves and slipped into your silky shorts. I'm not sure whether it's a case of delusions of grandeur where Krassimir's concerned. I'm not sure Bulgarian TV's sure either, but it's clear from even a cursory listening to the studio version that the whole falsetto thing just doesn't work. It certainly doesn't help that Mr Avramov, all bone structure and designer stubble, lays on the drama in a manner scarily reminiscent of Norway's Haldor Lægreid. His overall, overreaching approach clearly rang the alarm bells with the powers that be at BNT, and I can't see it doing anything else with the unsuspecting viewers of Europe.

Which is a shame really, since the camouflage job the broadcaster necessarily instigated has muddied what was - bar the lead vocals - a fairly decent slice of upbeat Eastern-tinged trash. The backing vocals, the ironic highlight of the original version, have been simultaneously promoted and suppressed (with Ani Lozanova, Albena Veskova and Petia Buyuklieva individually or together giving us their best Anabel Conde in La Mirada Interior breakdown), leaving little left to admire about the song than the occasional aspect of its composition. Of course, three minutes of programmed bass and synths is never going to support a performance as fundamentally undermined from the outset as Illusion's. I hope the threatened guys on stilts are insured.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be in Krassimir Avramov's shoes at this point: going into a competition without the backing of the very people who gave him the opportunity to do so, and whose attitude towards the situation seems to centre on salvaging what they can from it rather than making the most of it. We've seen before, with David D'Or in 2004, how quickly a performance like this can deteriorate, and that was without the overt pressure of a broadcaster instructing you to bring as little shame upon your nation as possible. In a way I'd love for Krassimir to prove them wrong by at least qualifying, but I'd say that scenario's as illusory as everything else about the entry.

Israel

2009-04-05T14:15:00.005+03:00

There Must Be Another Way (Einaich) Noa & Mira Awad

"When I cry, I cry for both of us..."

Nothing says 'sanctimonious' at Eurovision quite like an Israeli anthem. From Shalom Olam to Leha'amin, the war-torn nation state has encouraged us to light candles with Sarit Hadad and hands-up-and-amen with Liora whilst building a wall along the West Bank and unleashing force it is happy to admit is excessive on the Gaza Strip. Every invocation to peace has rung hollow, more like an exercise in fishing for sympathy (or worse, a PR opportunity), and has only ever paid lip service to the aspect of the Israeli situation that makes their 2009 entry - the aptly titled There Must Be Another Way (Einaich) - the poignant success that it is: the fact that both sides, ordinary Arabs and Jews, are impacted by the reckless politics of their leaders; equally aware of the other's suffering; and equally desperate to effect a resolution.

Not that anyone would be so naïve as to assume that a Eurovision entry could bring about an end to an impasse as complex as the one that exists between Israel and Palestine, who are each as much to blame as the other for the ongoing conflict. Nor can the West claim innocence, but that is one of the bases There Must Be Another Way covers and one of the points Noa and Mira Awad make in the English lyrics of the song. The balance created in the fusion of Hebrew, Arabic and English is a remarkable achievement, and the importance of Israel delivering only the second song in the contest's history with lyrics in Arabic cannot, and should not, be downplayed.

Balance is something There Must Be Another Way abounds in. From its effective use of languages to its exquisite harmonies - which are every bit as complex as the situation they are employed to illustrate - and which underline the message at its heart more effectively even than the lyrics - the song bears all the hallmarks of having been carefully crafted to work on a number of levels. This can also be seen (or rather heard) in the way the composition builds, with the three parts of the song - the Hebrew, Arabic and English - receiving distinct musical 'keys' which are then combined to form an acoustic and percussive whole. The subtlety of it is impressive, to say the least.

Sadly, what makes There Must Be Another Way the subtle accomplishment it is is also likely to make it a lot harder for the song to qualify. First impressions count, and most voters will probably experience the same cynical reaction to it that I did upon its undeniably engineered victory in the Israeli national final. When you add to this the fact that it is nevertheless the least clamorous (and certainly least pious) anthem the country has given us and that it will probably be eclipsed in viewers' affections by the Icelandic ballad that shortly follows it, its chances of qualification seem slim.

And yet the mere fact that we can put the terms 'subtle' and 'Israeli anthem' in the same sentence is reason enough for There Must Be Another Way to receive a second airing. It has taken the IBA more than 30 years to produce an act at Eurovision as vitally representative as Noa and Mira Awad, and they have done so in a sublime and understated style I would never have given them credit for. As with Israel's 2005 and 2008 entries Hasheket Shenish'ar and The Fire In Your Eyes, There Must Be Another Way is easily one of the best songs of the year, and I hope against hope the audience recognises its sincerity.

Turkey

2009-04-05T13:25:00.007+03:00

Düm Tek Tek Hadise

"Feels like there's no way back..."

What makes a cliché a cliché is the fact it's so true, and nowhere is the old maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" truer than in a world of Eurovision dominated by diaspora-heavy voting where uncomplicated girly ethnopop from the south/east of the continent does so well. For large swathes of the audience it is more than sufficient; for those of us who like a little more ingenuity in our ESC entries* it leaves something to be desired. This year's Turkish delight, Düm Tek Tek, is a case in point: joining the dots very neatly, with a ruler and a proper pen and everything, but joining the dots nonetheless, it does what it says on the tin and offers nothing fresh whatsoever.

What Düm Tek Tek doesn't do is take into account the fact that while the way the voting in the semis works may make it a nigh-on 100% qualifier, the final is now a different kettle of fish entirely. Well, 50% entirely, with 'professional' juries from each country providing half of the catch. Performed by the Turkish émigré twin sister Helena Paparizou never knew she had, the song is certain to make the Belgian douze as unpredictable as such a thing can be when there are only two alternatives for who it will go to, but its fate in the final is yet to be determined. As the combined televoting and jury results released for 2007 showed, there is every chance that a song of its calibre could sail through to Saturday night and founder once it gets there, which I feel would be more justified in the case of Düm Tek Tek than the Armenian entry Jan Jan. But the success or failure of both will be pounced upon by all as a measure of how worthy the switch to 50/50 voting has been.

In any case, many would argue that there's little point in trying to second-guess the outcome: who's to say it will be any different just because juries are involved? After all, Düm Tek Tek is not at all incompetent: minimalist, perhaps, and unimaginative, but not incompetent. It can hardly not get the staging songs like it need, so it will probably do well regardless. But while - after repeated listens - I've grown somewhat enamoured of its relentless drive, I'm glad Turkey's playing it safe in a year when they might actually be punished for it. There's a place in Eurovision for this sort of thing (and for the Hadises of the world), but they've shown us they can do so much better.

* For which we, or they, are frequently labelled 'pretentious'

Switzerland

2009-04-05T08:54:00.003+03:00

The Highest Heights Lovebugs

"May I have your attention, please?"

There are certain countries you expect certain things of at Eurovision. Whether it's Sweden doing schlager, Armenia doing ethnopop or Belgium doing bugger all, they fit neatly into the pigeonholes they create for themselves. Equally, there are countries we will champion at Eurovision if they think outside that box: Belgium is an example this year, and their rank is swelled by near neighbours and rival no-hopers Switzerland. While dissimilar in virtually every respect, their entries have one trait that will always stand them in good stead with me: authenticity. Like the Turkish and Bosnian entries in 2008, The Highest Heights compromises nothing in presenting itself to Europe, contrived only in the sense that it is a textbook example of what the group behind it, Lovebugs, do best.

Unlike Turkey and Bosnia, what Switzerland lacks at Eurovision is a ready-made audience to lap up (and more importantly vote for) whatever three minutes of music it offers up. This may prove to be the biggest stumbling block The Highest Heights has to overcome in the 1st semi: it might have an appeal reminiscent of Deli or Pokušaj, but without a Swiss vanguard from Reykjavik to Jerusalem to catapault it over the barricades, Lovebugs will have to try just that little bit harder to break through to the televoters. Any jury worth its salt (which is to say with any musical credentials beyond determining who is fabulous enough to warrant promotion to the final ahead of someone more qualified to be there) should save the song in the event that it falls victim to the shortcomings of the semi's voting, since it is a more solid and contemporary Eurovision entry than any the Swiss have entered from their own scene in a ridiculously long time.

That, though, is why we champion it. I think I would be speaking for most people if I said that there was no love lost with Switzerland at the contest; where they differ from Andorra, for example, who have been far more consistent at entering songs deserving of better results, is in the fact that the various Swiss broadcasters have made an unwanted name for themselves by seldom choosing anything for which a mediocre outcome wasn't completely justified. In that sense, The Highest Heights represents a watershed for the country that won the whole shebang on its very first outing but have since only made the top 5 four times in 25 years. Melodic, meaningful and sounding like something normal people would actually listen to and like, it is the kind of thing there simply has to be a place for in the final.

And barring the kind of performance I doubt a band of Lovebugs' standing would deliver, I suspect it will qualify. In an ideal world it would then go on and vie for victory, but this is Eurovision we're talking about, and indeed Switzerland. But The Highest Heights is the Swiss doing the unexpected, and doing it brilliantly, and for that they deserve to be championed as far as hopeless sentiment - and a televote or two - will carry them.

Andorra

2009-04-04T14:35:00.003+03:00

La Teva Decisió (Get A Life) Susanne Georgi

"És el moment de corregir..."

Every contest needs an underdog, and there is no greater underdog in Eurovision than the principality of Andorra. Dwarfed by larger nations with strategically dispersed populations, it is a dot on the ESC map that barely registers with most viewers, despite almost always deserving to. It is one of very few countries left in the competition never to have qualified for the final, so after their abortive makeover last year it comes as no surprise that they are returning to the strategy which saw them come as close as they ever have to a Saturday night berth with Salvem El Món in 2007. Resting on the only crutch they have - the language card, which admittedly they can only play to Spain and, to a lesser extent, Portugal - they have once again come up with a catchy entry in Catalan and English performed by a spunky young singer: La Teva Decisió (Get A Life).

The new Luxembourg, Andorra is contemporary Eurovision's greatest importer, shipping in performers from various other European countries in lieu of what is clearly limited local talent. This year they have chosen cute-as-a-button Susanne Georgi, hailing from Denmark - who are of course in the 2nd semi, depriving her of what little support she might otherwise have relied upon to counteract as best she could the hoover effect of such rivals as Turkey and Armenia. Her gorgeous, glottal vocals are what make La Teva Decisió the attractive proposition it is. Light and poppy without lacking depth (like the composition), they add something to the song which sees it working as a package much more effectively than I would ever have expected it to. Of course, as per any Andorran entry in a semi-final where televoting holds sway, the problem is not so much the song itself as overcoming the headstart other countries have under the current system.

Being the underdog, what the principality has to hope for with La Teva Decisió is a groundswell of support not dissimilar to the one that saw the audience asking "Where is Andorra?" during the 2007 final. And it may just happen: people seem generally disposed to like the song, and given the same kind of energetic but unassuming performance Anonymous delivered in Helsinki it may just win the audience over. After all, it has the broadest appeal of any Andorran entry to date. That said, the 1st semi is the harder to pick in terms of who will qualify, and for La Teva Decisió it will be an uphill struggle from the outset. I would desperately love to see it make the final, even if it were only to come last once it got there, but I'm reticent to suggest that it will on televoting alone. The juries may decide to throw it a lifeline; I hope someone does. As underdogs go, Andorra is faithful and uncomplaining, and has more than earned its chance to show Europe what it's capable of.

Armenia

2009-04-04T14:07:00.005+03:00

Nor Par (Jan Jan) Inga & Anush

"What can I say if ya gonna tell me nothin'?"

Reality is not something Eurovision has a lot to do with. At best what it gives us is a compromise between what is desirable and what is achievable, in television terms and where the performances are concerned. The same applies to the songs themselves, which must condense their message into a handful of minutes, like taking shortcuts to squeeze a text message into 160 characters. The songs and performances have to employ a kind of shorthand to do whatever it is the team behind them is aiming for. And our ideas of what that might be, influenced by national final renditions and promo videos, is frequently wide of the mark. All of this is true of the Armenian entry for Moscow, Nor Par (Jan Jan).

Caught somewhere between the realities of the messy live version that won the song its ticket to Eurovision in the first place and the lavish and professional treatment (and PR) it has since received, Nor Par is a bit of an enigma, and one of the hardest songs to pick this year in terms of how it will actually turn out on stage. Its ethnopop heart is worn very much on the sleeves of sisters Inga and Anush, but the static performance Armenia's 2008 entry Qele Qele was given makes you wonder whether Nor Par will get the visual fanfare a song with its drive both deserves and requires. (The vocals are another matter entirely.) Reminiscent of the nation's debut entry and its immediate predecessor in its instrumentation and arrangement, it is a more worthy and effective piece of music than it at first appears to be. We will have to wait and see whether this is reflected in an endorsement from the juries in the final, for it will almost certainly make it that far.

The reality is sure to be somewhere between two extremes - of televoting bias and jury disdain; of unpromising beginnings and developments that promise more than they are likely to deliver; of ethnic flavour and pop sensibilities. On balance the song is probably the best of the three upbeat entries Armenia has given us in the sense of what it is trying to achieve (assuming we're right in thinking we know what that is), but the country finds itself in the undesirable position whereby Nor Par will be something of a yardstick for the success of the new format. Like FYR Macedonia last year, it will only be the song's failure to make much of an impact on the [final] scoreboard that will see the naysayers agreeing the 50/50 jury/televote split is a success. But given the easy appeal of the song, will that really be the case?

Sweden

2009-04-04T13:36:00.004+03:00

La Voix Malena Ernman

"J'entends la voix..."

The last year has seen a shift in the focus of the national selection process for Eurovision in many countries, but nowhere more so than on the shores of the Baltic Sea. But whereas Estonia and Lithuania took the option (to greater or lesser success) of cutting the cord between Eesti Laul and Dainų Daina and the contest itself, Sweden's Melodifestivalen - the biggest national final in Europe - implemented changes that although more cosmetic in nature will have a greater impact on their Eurovision entry. Choosing to forgo live backing vocals and upping the numbers of artists on stage could be seen as a move by SVT to say "this is MF, not ESC", but it will force the broadcaster to significantly rework the performance of its entry for the first time in many years. And given the nature of that entry - the operatic, schlagertastic La Voix - how it will translate is one of the great unknowns of the 2009 season.

Perhaps realising that resting on their laurels was producing ever-diminishing returns, the Swedes would seem to have taken the decision to steer the set-up of their national final away from the ESC norm in a deliberate move to ensure that whichever song won would have to be reworked for Moscow. Luckily for Sweden, they have a knack for coming up with flawless backing vocals, so we can only assume that if they're let down anywhere it won't be in that department, however demanding the vocals themselves may be. Only time will tell whether my fantasy of an OTT Louis XV frock overload materialises, but till then my greatest misgiving with La Voix remains its performer, Malena Ernman (a vision in blonde to rival Petr Elfimov). Her opera vocals are the stuff of goosebumps, but her delivery of the verses verges on drag-queen-hitting-on-terrified-twink, and she does tend to look the part. She also lends a strange nasal quality to the vocals here, like she needs to give her nose a long overdue blow. Mind you, with all the arm-pointing and divaesque elevation going on, very few are likely to notice or care.

Because basically the two things La Voix has going for it are (a) that despite the move away from the Eurovision norm in terms of performance in Melodifestivalen it remains a very contest-friendly song and (b) the 'popera' genre is one with a proven track record, with both Slovenia and Latvia qualifying in 2007 (the latter, albeit, in sub-Il Divo fashion (if such a thing exists)). Both did so from much later starting positions, but La Voix is the kind of song that should be immune to the caprice of the draw since, as ever with Sweden, it is impeccably, if at times economically, produced. It would be ironic (or perhaps apt) if they were to come unstuck having been forced to remodel the song for the Eurovision stage, but it would also be a surprise.

Belarus

2009-04-03T16:12:00.005+03:00

Eyes That Never Lie Petr Elfimov

"All my life I waited, thinking I would never fly..."

However good a song is, however good a performance is, try as we might we sometimes simply cannot get past what someone looks like at Eurovision. With only three minutes to make an impact on the audience, the performers often shoot themselves squarely in both feet - occasionally unintentionally - with the visuals: from picking an outfit Barbara Dex would baulk at (think Andorra 2006) to something seemingly as harmless as not pushing the hair out of their face (and as brilliant as 2003's Monts Et Merveilles was, I still can't watch it without being absorbed by Louisa's indifference to the tresses plastered all over her countenance). A case in point in 2009 is Belarusian entrant Petr Elfimov and his aptly titled Eyes That Never Lie.

A vision in white and blond, the elfen Mr Elfimov obscures all before him, not least of which his undeniable talent for singing. Your average viewer is only human, and it can be a struggle dragging yourself from thoughts of how wrong someone looks to take in anything else that might deserve your attention. Here it certainly doesn't help that Petr's peculiar appearance is offset by a song that sounds (and needless to say looks) just as unfashionable. While benefiting from a makeover we can only hope its performer will also receive - and they worked wonders on Ruslan Alehno last year - Eyes That Never Lie still comes across as if it was unearthed from a time capsule buried in Minsk some time prior to the collapse of the Iron Curtain. As a composition in its own right it's surprisingly listenable, and even has decent lyrics. So it's a pity most people will never be inclined to appreciate them.

To be honest, there's not much wrong with Eyes That Never Lie at all, if you like that kind of thing. On the face of it much of Eastern Europe still does, so if Belarus makes it to the final they may improve on whatever result they achieve in the semi. However, there's no overlooking the fact that they are one of the worst-placed countries in either of this year's semis, all but reliant on televoter support but cut off from virtually every country likely to give them any. Being performed in Russia will doubtless see the song more warmly received than it would be anywhere else, but whether that's enough to convince the viewers at home remains to be seen.

As, indeed, does Mr Elfimov. Eyes That Never Lie is far from the car-crash television that previous Belarusian entries like Love Me Tonight and Mama provided, so if hair and wardrobe work their magic on him* he may yet make it onto the screen in a form which doesn't leave most people ogling him in a mix of fascination and repulsion. And in that case all we'll have to contend with is the music...

* Boom-tish.

Belgium

2009-04-03T10:08:00.004+03:00

Copycat Copycat

"He's too dead to rock'n'roll..."

Well into its 50s, Eurovision has long mirrored the musical habits we all fall into in our lives. At an early age it was too young to have developed its own taste in music, and so existed for many years listening to the kind of stuff its parents preferred. By the time it was old enough to have hit upon its own style it was still impressionable enough to have it stick, and has often since been accused of looking down its nose at 'modern' music in favour of something it feels more comfortable with. The upshot of this is that although the contest was born into an era dominated by rock'n'roll, it has rarely embraced the genre (at least in Western Europe), and barring one startlingly familiar-sounding German entry in the '50s, never at the time. It is both ironic and appropriate then that Belgium - arguably the least perceptive of the longer-standing countries in terms of what kind of music works at the contest - should redress the balance with their 2009 entry Copycat.

When rumours surfaced that Belgian broadcaster RTBF were planning to enter an Elvis impersonator as their Eurovision entry for Moscow, it's fair to say that the general reaction was one of weary skepticism. Renowned for poor choices (whichever broadcaster made them) that have only very occasionally paid dividends, the country has a reputation in the contest which - when combined with the selection of deliberate pastiche in a style that has seldom worked in the Eurovision context - meant that the hearsay did not bode well. And yet to the surprise of most, Copycat is fun and clever in a way that is completely unpretentious, exhibits exemplary production values and is very catchy. It is arguably the best Belgian entry since... well, since rock'n'roll was at the peak of its popularity.

Which is not to say that it will necessarily go down well with a different audience half a century later. One thing we've seen in the contest is that there is only really one country that seems able to get away with consciously emulating a bygone era, and that's Sweden (and even then recent results have suggested its ability to do so is slipping). What stands Copycat in good stead is the way it is delivered: its humour, and the fact that it is not taking itself in the slightest bit seriously, is accessible to everyone, and while clearly stylised it is not pretending to be anything other than what it is. Unlike the Montenegrin entry that opens the semi, the Belgian entry feels authentic.

If Patrick Ouchène & Co. manage to convey that sense of genuineness to the audience without labouring the point, Copycat could well surprise a lot of people not only by qualifying for the final, but once there edging into contention for a place on the podium. Belgium has done it before, with a song that was just as credible and yet just as largely overlooked, and which harked back to another era; they may well do it again. Potentially giving the contest the winner it ought to have had 50 years ago in the process.

Czech Republic

2009-04-03T09:46:00.004+03:00

Aven Romale Gipsy.cz

"If you really wanna understand, just sing it with me..."

For a competition that is more or less reliant on the input of the voting public for an outcome, Eurovision is remarkably short on audience participation. The restraints of the production - in particular the sheer pace at which it gets through the songs and the fact that each song has only 3 minutes to make its mark - leave the performers oddly detached from the audience in the arena: the best they can hope for in terms of interaction is a spontaneous burst of applause mid-song that the microphones pick up and project to the viewers at home.

This may prove problematic for the Czech entry in Moscow, Aven Romale, which perhaps more than any other in the history of Eurovision needs to appeal directly to the audience for it to resonate. There has been a curious lack of songs in the contest - especially in the televoting era where appealing to the massed viewers of the continent was your only hope of making any impact on the scoreboard - of the 'I sing this bit then you all repeat it' variety. Shorn of this kind of support, the Czech Republic could easily find themselves propping up the rest of the semi once again at the end of the night, since Aven Romale's hook (and pretty much its whole point) requires the audience to sing along and go a bit mental for it to work.

And that's in spite of the colourful and at times surprisingly subtle and complex composition, which could see them doing very well indeed in the final if they run the gauntlet of the semi-final's cut-throat televote and come out the other end unscathed. If the boys from Gipsy.cz pitch it just right, getting the audience wanting to be involved, I can see Aven Romale's inoffensive comedy appeal serving it just as well, if not better, than the similar feel to the Turkish entry in 2004, For Real, and Moldova's debut in 2005, Boonika Bate Doba. While lumbered with an unenviable draw, it has the added benefit of standing out from everything else in the 1st semi, and that - in combination with a fun performance - could be enough to see it through. It all depends on whether we, as the audience, really do wanna understand and sing along.

Montenegro

2009-04-02T15:35:00.009+03:00

Just Get Out Of My Life Andrea

"Everybody's talkin' 'bout all the things I'm missin'..."

Try to pass yourself off as something you're not at Eurovision and people will almost always see through you. Whether it's an unexpected switch in style, language or performance, the audience tends to frown on any entry designed to tick all of the contest's boxes unless it does it with equally unexpected panache. This year's entry from Montenegro - bearing the double-edged title Just Get Out Of My Life - does not, and is as complete an about-face as you could imagine.

After following up their solid but uneventful debut with just as solid but just as old-fashioned an opener to last year's contest, the Montenegrin delegation would seem to have taken their lead from similarly hopeless and even more pint-sized Andorra in abandoning their language, bypassing their own song-writing talent and shipping in a team of foreigners to save them from semi-final ignominy. (And look what became of Casanova.) Aligning themselves with and masquerading as composers and lyricists from schlager powerhouses Sweden and Spain, German stalwarts Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger return to Eurovision with another entry from their catalogue of cheesy pop, this time for a country they clearly have no affiliation with. The mathematical approach they take to composing and lyric-penning might see Montenegro challenging Slovenia for the title of trashiest Balkan nation at ESC (I don't count Romania, whatever Elena Gheorghe might claim) if it weren't so incongruous and didn't smack of desperation.

In a concession to the rule requiring some sort of national flavour in an entry, Just Get Out Of My Life is being fronted by the striking, home-grown Andrea. Hitherto unheard by and unknown to the wider European public - but touted by many from the former Yugoslavia as someone to watch (and indeed as a good singer) - her ability to sell the song vocally and in terms of performance on the night will be almost entirely responsible for securing any chance it may have of qualifying. The song's been-there-done-that quality is unlikely to sit well with more demanding televoters, so however spunky Ms Demirović is she may yet have to rely on the OGAE jury vote which was perceived to have plucked Sweden from the jaws of disaster in the 2nd semi last year.

'Convincing' is the key word with Just Get Out Of My Life. Where its uncomplicated pop may fail to win most televoters over, its performer may just have the wherewithal to make the song the frothy, flag-waving, zoomaholic opener the semi needs. My feeling is that it won't, precisely because it's Montenegro trying to do what other countries have been doing, often better, for a long time in this contest, and I expect the audience will see it. I don't begrudge them searching for their niche, but I don't think they've found it with this entry.

Semi 1

2009-04-02T15:12:00.004+03:00

Unlike the opening semi of 2008, the 1st semi-final in Moscow is a Eurotrash tour-de-force from the off, with little in the way of ballads to trouble the voters until well past the halfway mark. This provides for an upbeat opening to the contest, but makes predicting who will fall foul of such a relentless opening slew all the more difficult. Georgia's withdrawal may mean that the songs in this semi have only a slight advantage over their counterparts in the 2nd semi, but that 3% may make all the difference.

Hardest done-by in the early draw for the 1st semi would seem to be the Czech Republic, whose offbeat entry will have to be pitched perfectly to make a lasting impression, particularly when followed by the more blatantly cartoon fun of perennial also-rans Belgium. The Swedes would also have been hoping for a better start than fifth, but their entry is perhaps less susceptible to the whims of the draw. Rounding off the first third of the semi, Armenia seems impervious to failure with yet another ethno-pop number and a diaspora to die for.

The middle run of the 1st semi is likely to see the televote dominated by the Turkish entry and Iceland's well-placed, well-produced and very traditional ballad. This may not bode well for the Israelis and their vocally complex and rather beautiful anthem or the Swiss, arguably coming into the contest with their best entry in a very long time. Andorra is likewise presenting probably its most approachable entry to date, but by its very nature will struggle to make the cut.

Formerly fated finalists FYR Macedonia lead us into the home straight with another solid entry, but this year more than any other they are likely to fall short, especially in contention with the striking Bosnian entry that rounds off the night's proceedings. The remainder of the semi is a bit of a mixed bag, with Romania's Europop and Portugal's folk number just as likely to do well as the Maltese anthem that comes after them. Finland's slice of the '90s seems the obvious candidate to fall flat here, but coming towards the end of the run - and given as professional a performance as it was in the national final - you'd think twice before ruling out its chances altogether.

Considering that the voting system in this year's semis remains unchanged from 2008, with nine of the ten finalists chosen by the public and one 'rescued' by juries (whose composition is as yet unknown), there are some clear candidates for qualification in this 1st semi - and that's despite the limiting effect of the split draw. Beyond these, though, the possibilities are endless. Well, not endless, but certainly harder to predict than last year. I'll throw my hat into the ring more definitively after reviewing each of the songs individually.

Добро пожаловать в Москву!

2009-04-01T15:03:00.008+03:00

Welcome to my blog about the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Moscow on 12, 14 and 16 May. Over the next month and a bit I will be attempting to look at all of the competing entries as objectively and constructively as possible, with the generally pointless aim of trying to ascertain which are most likely to succeed and which will fall by the wayside. I did pretty well last year.

Feel free to leave comments in response to my posts, and enjoy :)

Overview: The final

2008-05-28T21:33:00.002+03:00

The final was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Generally the performances were good, or at least better than the second semi-final, but the atmosphere was a little... perfunctory. There were no real surprises, underscored of course by the predictable and completely unexciting voting (but more on that later).

To me the opening didn't work as well as it should, with Marija Šerifović coming across flat and somewhat detached from proceedings, possibly there more to bolster her ratings at home than for any other reason. Jovana Janković and Željko Joksimović did a decent enough job as hosts on all three nights, albeit without presenting much personality or anything to set them apart from any of the hosts over the last however many years.

Romania opened the show with a slightly improved performance (from Nico, and dress for that matter) over that in the semi-final, but the highlight of the first quarter of the show for me turned out to be Andy Abraham. At the end of the performance I still knew Even If was going nowhere, but it was the best from the UK in a long time. Meanwhile, Olta Boka was in tune but slightly off-key for the entire song, Germany was a disaster, and Armenia still wasn't any better. Bosnia, thankfully, was, mostly due to better camerawork.

Israel and Finland made a strong opening to the second quarter of the show, which perhaps rivalled the last six or so songs for the title of strongest of the night, with further good performances from Iceland, Turkey and Portugal. Poland was still effective but somewhat stretched, and I was surprised again by how unengaging Croatia was.

Back to back, Latvia and Sweden seemed to be battling one another to see who could come across as more plastic and contrived, but coming after them (and the stronger performances that preceded them) Denmark lost much of the charm that saw it do so well in the context of the semi-final. In this part of the final Ukraine put everything else to shame, with the performance really coming together when it mattered, and if the final had ended there Shady Lady would certainly have been the winner.

Unfortunately for Ani Lorak there were half a dozen or so songs left, and after the truly backfiring French act and the better but still OTT piece of Azeri theatre there came a string of good performances all the way to the end of the final only interrupted by Spain, which was just as bizarre and laboured as Divine and not nearly as funny as it should have been (and probably thought it was).

Buoyed by the more than passable level of most of the performances, I came back down to earth with a crash come the voting, with my sense of the final being somehow distant having been confirmed by the interminable interval act, which just didn't come across well on screen at all. The way the voting unfolded though took the biscuit; I fully expected it to be as skewed as last year's, but not even more obvious and predictable.

What made the voting such bad press for the contest was not necessarily only the 8s, 10s and 12s which anyone with a general knowledge of Eurovision could have guessed (I predicted 35 of the 43 top threes correctly and 40 of the 43 douzes!!), but the less tangible things like Azerbaijan and Armenia not giving each other any points, the UK picking up half of its tiny total of points from the San Marinese jury, and Bulgaria giving Germany 12 points just because one of No Angels has roots in the country.

All of these things combined go to show just how unrepresentative the voting actually is in Eurovision these days. I'm all for letting people vote for who they want to, but democracy for its own sake is not the answer, especially in a contest which still purports to be searching for the best song. I'm not saying Russia didn't deserve to win; that's not the issue. But the voting was so disappointingly dull that it really took the edge off the final for me.

In retrospect though I am happy that despite all this my four favourite songs this year - those from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Turkey, Norway and Israel - ended in the top ten, as musically and in terms of their performances I feel they all deserved to be there, even if at least two of them probably benefitted from the kind of voting that annoys me about the contest these days.

Looking ahead, well... Eurovision Russian-style should be an interesting experience! I'll reserve judgement for the time being, but my experience of Russians and Russian television in particular here in Estonia makes me wonder quite how it will turn out. As things stand I wonder whether I'll have it in me to repeat the blog experience of this year next time round, but I'm sure I'll be bitten by the bug again!

In the meantime I'll add posts every now and again just to keep things up and running. Feel free to comment as you like, and thanks to those who have expressed their appreciation for my efforts over the last couple of months. Hope you enjoyed it!

Overview: Semi-final 2

2008-05-28T21:15:00.002+03:00

The second semi-final is something of a blur as I have been trying to erase much of it from my mind. We haven't seen so many poor and/or otherwise cringeworthy performances in one contest in a long time and it left me doing little other than shaking my head and thinking: to a lot of people this is the level Eurovision operates on every year.

The show started well, with performances from Iceland, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine that generally lived up to expectations. Ani Lorak and Shady Lady came across flatter than I expected, but still oozed class. I was appalled at the hostile reception Albania received from the Serbian audience - ironically made all the worse because the hall was actually full this time - and therefore ecstatic that Olta Boka performed so well.

Things after that took a drastic decline, with little respite during the rapid downhill journey that followed. The Czech Republic was simply dire, but Switzerland wasn't far behind: Paolo Meneguzzi came across very insecurely singing Era Stupendo. Belarus and Latvia were also bad in their way, although at least Wolves Of The Sea provided some spectacle, however moronic. I was also disappointed that Croatia and Bulgaria didn't come across as well I had hoped, but that in turn made Denmark seem very together and a surefire qualifier for the final.

After Georgia singularly failed to impress me (perhaps because I'm such a cynic) I thought Hungary performed well, although stuck with a very dated song, and was not surprised to see it not qualify. Malta was almost as much of an off-key train-wreck as some of the earlier entries that I was relieved to see Evdokia Kadi make something of Femme Fatale, and FYR Macedonia and Portugal rounded off the semi - at long last - with quality performances. Vânia Fernandes was particularly strong.

Overall though I was very underwhelmed by the second semi-final. I managed to predict seven of the ten qualifiers (after scoring 9.5/10 for the first semi!) but was largely unmoved by the fates of most of the songs. Still, the final was shaping up to be a good one, and the two semi system seemed to have proven it could work.

Overview: Semi-final 1

2008-05-28T20:57:00.002+03:00

In hindsight, but also as expected, the first semi-final proved to be better performed than the second and more competitive in terms of qualifiers that might trouble the upper reaches of the scoreboard come the final.

The first country to make an impact, and a lasting one, was Israel: The Fire In Your Eyes proved to be class from start to finish, and was one of the few in the semi to benefit from good camerawork and simple staging. Moldova impressed for its lighting and design, as did Belgium's swirling backdrop, which actually made Soetkin's strawberries-and-cream outfit more palatable.
After the messy visuals for Azerbaijan, Slovenia came across well (on my home cinema system anyway) for its sound, while suffering in both departments - not to mention in terms of performance and the worst ad libs in Eurovision in a long time - was Andorra. Gisela made an absolute dog's breakfast of Casanova and you have to wonder whether it would have been possible to make it worse.

Armenia was the biggest surprise of the semi-final for me, for coming across so blandly, almost as if Sirusho really couldn't be bothered to give it her all. Hind performed well for The Netherlands after her, but Your Heart Belongs To Me simply didn't have what it takes to win votes, especially with Finland coming on next and blowing everything away with one of the most together performances of the night. Romania started off nicely until Nico appeared out of the darkness in her mangrove creation and started shouting at Vlad (who could have undone his shirt a couple of extra buttons), and though I was sure it would qualify, both Russia and Greece after it came together a lot better.

In the end I feel the ten best combinations of songs and performances made it through, and it was nice to see Poland finally qualify, albeit in a blaze of fake tan and bleached teeth. The greatest disappointment of the semi for me was the obviously half-empty hall, which also erked me last year in Helsinki. It just looks shoddy and could so easily be avoided. Overall though the first semi-final got my thumbs-up.

Добро пожаловать в Москву... или Санкт Петербург!

2008-05-28T13:01:00.004+03:00

So the Serbians' take on Eurovision is over and Russia's victory has left me feeling rather hollow. Not because Believe won per se, but because the voting was even more predictable and less exciting than ever. More on that though in my retrospectives on the semi-finals and final.

No one seems quite sure where we'll be heading next year, Moscow or St Petersburg, although either way it will be fascinating to see whether and how the Russians overcome themselves to organise the thing. Alla Pugachova and Philip Kirkorov to host, anyone?

Poll results: The final

2008-05-18T18:33:00.003+03:00

A quick round-up of the results of the poll about where you all expect the Big Four and the hosts to be on the scoreboard at the end of the final. They can be divided fairly cleanly in three.

More than 90% of those who voted feel that Serbia's Oro will rekindle the tradition of the hosts ending somewhere in the top 10, with as many as almost 2 out of every 3 voters confident that it will finish somewhere between 1st and 5th. (As you can probably tell from my review below, I don't share that confidence, but there you are.)

At the other end of the scale, more than 75% of all respondents feel that France, Germany and the United Kingdom will be in the bottom 10. Andy Abraham and Even If fare worst, with 76% of voters predicting it will finish somewhere between 21st and last.

Very much in the middle is Spain, whose novelty entry Baila El Chiki Chiki is thought as likely to finish 1st as it is 5th, 15th or 25th by virtually the same number of voters. That said, a slight majority see it finishing in the second column on the scoreboard rather than the first, and for what it's worth I'm one of them, although it wouldn't surprise me if it did better.

Having now reviewed all of the songs I'm going to open one last poll prior to Eurovision week to see who people think, after all, is most likely to win. Rather than including all 43 entries it will be based on the predictions from previous polls about qualifiers from each of the semi-finals and thus include 25 countries, just like the final itself. For the last time this season: get voting!

Serbia

2008-05-17T20:47:00.001+03:00

Oro Jelena Tomašević featuring Bora Dugić

Apart from the convenience of probably not having to travel very far to get to the venue, there are in all likelihood many other good things about representing your country on home soil at Eurovision. One in particular is the fact that whether or not you have a song or give a performance that warrants it, national pride and a sense of duty will drive the partisan audience in the arena wild for both and make your entry seem, for a few brief seconds before the director cues the next postcard, like the most amazing entry the contest has ever seen. In some cases this is deserved, and even when it's not – with the likes of, say, the mediocre Latvian entry in 2003 – the enthusiasm is so infectious that it is simpler just to go along with it. Until the groundswell of emotion subsides a song can be the greatest triumph of style over substance you've ever seen and you will still be swept along by it. Particularly if it is as superficially grand and sweeping as Oro.

Representing what is presumably the final work in Željko Joksimović's Eurovision triptych, Oro aspires to be its central panel, flanked by Lane Moje and Lejla as two lesser but related works. If its import is to be measured in the poetic obscurity of its lyrics it certainly outdoes both, without really saying anything more than either. Combined with the slightly forced enormity of the composition, it leaves you with the sense that it is being wilfully po-faced, and more than a little condescending. The fact that it takes itself so seriously goes beyond admirable to off-putting, which is a great shame, as there is a lot to otherwise like about it. As might be expected, the arrangement is layered and as rich as the vocals that accompany it from Jelena Tomašević, which have both the power and the fragility they need to make the part she is playing in the story convincing and for her to speak to her audience. That though is Oro's problem: whereas Molitva was largely straightforward, it is more round-about, almost to the point of being manipulative.

The strings of the crowd in the hall are nevertheless much easier to pull than those of the televoters on the other side of the screen, and though they might acknowledge the hosts' effort with the faint praise of a shrug and a “that was alright”, they won't necessarily vote for it just because 20,000 elated fans make it look as though they should. At the end of the day their entry remains one among many and will be judged on its own merits. In Oro's case they are there for all to see, but mostly because they are so crassly signposted. Serbia has given us 2008's Big Balkan Ballad, but it lacks the modesty that make its nearest equivalents – last year's Bosnian entry Rijeka Bez Imena and this year's Albanian entry Zemrën E Lamë Peng – so much more effective. It will earn enough support in the region and from its people elsewhere on the continent to ensure that it does better than Finland did in Helsinki, but unless Jelena can add a touch of humility to it I don't see it pulling in the points from the rest of Europe that it would need to bring the country a second consecutive victory, or even trouble the top five. Nono way, nono nono nono nono nono way.

Spain

2008-05-16T22:23:00.002+03:00

Baila El Chiki Chiki Rodolfo Chikilicuatre

As they are designed to achieve much the same thing, there are numerous parallels between national finals and Eurovision itself. Some of the most ironic this year, in more ways than one, are those between the changes implemented to the contest for its 53rd edition and the way in which this year's Spanish entry was chosen. The introduction of two semi-finals, each with a jury wildcard, is widely seen not only as a response to the ever growing number of EBU members wishing to compete but also to the tendency for certain countries to qualify without their entries enjoying broad appeal, leaving more 'deserving' songs to languish among the also-rans. Spain's national final, designed to reverse the country's fortunes in the contest and allay the resulting disenchantment, was easily the season's most innovative and contentious selection process, being hijacked in the end by a song that was voted to victory just as partially as any in Eurovision from the likes of FYR Macedonia. And despite being deliberately the lowest common denominator in musical terms, Baila El Chiki Chiki has the potential to deliver Spain its best result in quite a while.

2008 is seen as the Year of the Joke in Eurovision, and no country is celebrating it quite as comprehensively as Spain. Of all of the 'novelty acts' gracing the stage in Belgrade, self-styled and fan-labelled alike, only one really deserves the title, and that is Baila El Chiki Chiki. Compared to the sheer silliness of Estonia's Leto Svet, the wacky artistry of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Pokušaj or the cartoon capers of Latvia's Wolves Of The Sea, the Spanish entry stands out for being all of those things and more. Less too, as it has none of the cynicism of Ireland's Irelande Douze Pointe. More important than the fact that it is greater than the sum of its parts though is that it has better aim than any of the other entries it is being shoehorned into the same pigeonhole as: completely see-through from start to finish and immediate from the off, those willing to take the bait are likely to be hooked within seconds of it hitting the airwaves.

Given we're talking about a Saturday night Eurovision audience here with Spain performing fourth from last, the chances are there will be more than enough people in the right frame of mind and/or with a sufficient amount of alcohol on board for Baila El Chiki Chiki to do well. It has everything you want in a joke entry: a caricature for a performer; a dance routine crying out to be copied by those watching; a simple and repetitive melody, made all the more ridiculous and therefore effective in this case by sounding like it was written and produced on one of those Casio keyboards you regret giving your precocious niece for Christmas as soon as she unwraps it and starts pressing random buttons; and a complete lack of agenda. There will still be horrified purists and those who shake their heads at it, but for your average viewer it is very much a laugh with it rather than a laugh at it song, which makes all the difference when it comes time to vote.

Having said all that, I don't actually like Baila El Chiki Chiki. To me the joke wears thin long before the song reaches its conclusion; I would much rather they had kept it at half the length, which is how it originally appeared. I will be happy for Spain if it does well, so at least one of the Big Four does, but I can't see it going all the way, and I wouldn't really want it to lest it establish even more of a precedent for the future of Eurovision than has already been set. Its victory would be in perfect keeping with the direction it is taking, but completely ironic in terms of it being a song contest.

France

2008-05-16T14:27:00.002+03:00

Divine Sébastien Tellier

When it comes to Eurovision, some countries are a lot more adventurous than others. There are those who churn out the same thing year in, year out; those who masquerade entries which would otherwise be labelled 'hopeless' or 'boring' with professions of concern for maintaining the quality of the music the contest showcases; those who only try something different if someone else proves it can be done first. But there are very few who deliberately choose the path of potentially greatest resistance and opt for songs and performances that either bring something new to the contest or are straight out of left-field (or both). A country that gained a reputation for doing so in the 1990s was France, and the circle has come around again: after reverting to type in the new millennium with a long line of ballads, the last of which was proffered almost apologetically with the caveat that at least it would bring a bit of 'class' to the stage, 2007 saw the country producing one of the year's most diverse and contemporary national finals and, from it, one of the contest's most exceptional entries. One year later, unruffled by the underwhelming response to Les Fatals Picards, the French have once again thought outside the box, and the result is Divine.

It's fair to say that in the lead-up to the revelation of the French entry for Belgrade, with speculation rife as to which alleged well-known star might have been brought on board, next to no one would have thought of Sébastien Tellier. More than just thinking outside of the box, Bruno Berberas and French television seem to have consciously sought out as narrow a niche as they could a) find and b) persuade to align itself with Eurovision, considered by many to be the last great bastion of anaemic pop. In that sense the coup they have pulled off is quite remarkable: though Tellier and his music are felt by some to be the personification of artistic pretention, the fact that a song-writer who is celebrated by others as one of the best on the French music scene is representing his country in the contest at all is an achievement. Especially when the song he is competing with – despite sounding nothing like anything else on offer – still has a tangible pop sensibility running through it that suits the contest perfectly.

Apart from simply being unexpected, Divine also stands out for the fact that its pop credentials are anything but affected. Whereas to some countries it seems as though manufacturing pop is like deciphering the instructions given to you in a foreign language for the DIY kit you thought it was a good idea to buy, Sébastien Tellier is part of a French electronica scene that includes Air and Daft Punk, both of whom he has worked with, and indeed one half of the latter of which produced the album from which Divine is taken. That though is probably the petard by which the song will also be hoist: despite being different in an accessible way, it remains an album track in an idiosyncratic style with unfathomable lyrics, and on the Eurovision stage is likely to be seen as just another novelty act. Consequently its chances of success depend on the artist's willingness to play it as it will be taken. If it is to have any impact on televoters besides leaving them bemused, the performance will need to be shrewdly pitched.

Divine to me is nevertheless the kind of alternative mainstream song Eurovision needs more of, and I would love to see it doing well for France if for no other reason than to reward them for not falling back into their old ways. I wouldn't even complain if success came only because people saw it as an amusing interlude, since there is both thought and quality behind it. But realistically, in a final where potentially a quarter of the field may be trying to outdo one another in the kooky stakes for the audience's votes, its chances are not high. Still, I'm glad of its inclusion – even if that's all it comes across as.

Germany

2008-05-15T19:17:00.003+03:00

Disappear No Angels

The number of ways in which Eurovision entries are chosen is surprisingly large given that your choice is limited to a national final or an internal selection. The Grands Prix and Eurosongs and myriad other festivals that take place across the continent between December and March all have some distinguishing feature; no two are exactly alike, although they may take after one another. Some countries chop and change between holding finals and simply announcing who will represent them; others stick to national selections but vary the way they go about them; while still others are so attached to their formats and convinced of their success that they leave well alone. In some cases this works; in others it does not – which makes those broadcasters who maintain national finals without making any adjustments to them even if they produce a string of failures all the more striking for their lack of insight and/or ambition. One such country is Germany.

Along with their brothers and sisters in the Big Four, the Germans have had a rough time of it on the Eurovision scoreboard in recent years. After following in the footsteps of the UK and coming last in 2005, the format of their national final was tweaked to narrow the field of chart acts competing, presumably with the idea that this would put more of a focus on quality. The change was largely successful; the songs that made it through were not. Though both of high calibre, No No Never and Frauen Regier'n Die Welt failed to make an impact on the televoters of Europe. Recent claims suggest that in Roger Cicero's case at least this may have been very different under juries, but that's not the way the contest works these days. The Germans who voted them to victory might have had better taste that the rest of the continent, but that doesn't alter the fact that the system which produced them failed to come up with a song with broad appeal. And using the same system in 2008 has led to the same result.

A piece of well-produced pop that wouldn't feel out of place in MTV's European Top Twenty, Disappear is setting its stall on completely the wrong street by competing in the Eurovision Song Contest. Very much an airplay kind of track, No Angels' performance in the national final proved that it translates awkwardly to the stage, offering little in the way of visual incident or impact besides the ubiquitous wind machine. It is not a song which lends itself to the situation being improved without appearing overbaked, either - although the girls would pull off the greatest gimmick of the contest if they actually managed to disappear at the end of their performance (a simple cross-fade from a locked-off camera to a pre-recorded shot from the same position would do it). But then the fact that the song needs something like this to ensure that anyone even notices it, especially so early in the run, speaks volumes. Its draw may be its death knell, even if the prognosis was stark to begin with.

Two things may yet save Disappear from providing Germany with another last place in the final (which I see as being a more likely result for them than for the UK this year, if only just): one is the fact that it actually means something, that its message is clear and that its minimalist composition is well in keeping with the lyrics, which may earn it some brownie points here and there; the other is that even in the absence of Austria, No Angels should be a big enough name for them to be shown a little mercy by their other neighbours. I'm not sure they will be by anyone else - they sing well, but their voices are a little hard to take to unless you like the 'great-together-individually-unique' approach of girl groups down the ages. If it fails to win them any points, the least we can hope for in response is that NDR is emboldened to alter its own approach to the contest. There's only so many times you can flog a dead horse.

United Kingdom

2008-05-13T20:09:00.003+03:00

Even If Andy Abraham

If there is one fail-safe way of ensuring that you don't win Eurovision, it is to copy the previous year's winner, even in the broadest of musical terms. The Czech Republic made its debut in the semi-final in Helsinki last year with harder rock than the Finns strolled to victory with in Athens and received the wooden spoon for their efforts, while the hosts fared less than impressively themselves in the final. However, the fact that the contest even has a place for the likes of Leave Me Alone in it these days shows that it no longer exists within the narrow boundaries that countries strayed beyond at their peril as little as a decade ago. All manner of music and performances are welcome, from ethnic to electronica and everything in between. However, one genre in particular seems to have become the other fail-safe way of ensuring you don't win Eurovision, or even getting close: anything retro. This would be bad news for any country who had plumped for the style, but it is especially so for the United Kingdom.

2007 more than any other year underscored that audiences simply are not voting for retro entries at Eurovision. Be it glam or disco, they're not having it, as the poor showings of Belgium in the semi-final and Sweden in the final showed. It is not an isolated phenomenon: the Finnish entry in 2002 and the Dutch entry in 2003 shared similar fates, for example, although in both of those cases the immediately preceding commercial breaks may have figured in their demise. Indeed, the reasons why televoters are shunning songs like One More Night and The Worrying Kind may be many and various, even if they are well-performed. (Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Eurovision is seen as being cheesy enough without throwbacks to the era that started it all.) Whatever they may be, it suggests that Andy Abraham would be facing an uphill battle in Belgrade even if he wasn't directly qualified for the final.

In fact everything seems to be working against him. Since the introduction of the semi-final in 2004, those that have qualified from it have generally done much better than those who find themselves in the final from the outset. Moreover, with diaspora voting exerting greater and greater influence on the results, the bottom half of the scoreboard is largely becoming a dumping ground for automatic finalists from the West – and specifically to the extent in recent years that the Big Four (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) have come to be dubbed the Bottom Four. Conspiracy theorists claim that the UK has been unfairly exposed to a political cold shoulder in Eurovision since the nation's involvement in the Iraq war, the 'high' point of which being the famous nul points achieved by Jemini in 2003; realists tend to point out the relative weakness of their entries in the face of the competition. Either way the result is the same.

The irony the United Kingdom may face in 2008 then is that while hardly the most modern three minutes of music it has ever entered, Even If is arguably its best entry since 2002's Come Back, with a very solid performer in Andy Abraham, and yet has nary a hope of achieving the same kind of result. Its arrangement and composition are more than merely capable, but lack the edge that would get viewers saying “ooh, that's worth voting for”. It might not be able to strip Cry Baby of its unique 26th and very last place without a point to its name, but coupled with the lack of exposure in either of the semi-finals, plus the fact that 23 other songs will follow it in this year's line-up, it may well deliver the UK an even worse result than expected without deserving it at all. If so, I would hope it is the wake-up call the country needs to return to the days – not all that long ago – when it was one of the few in the contest to consistently pioneer contemporary music. For as competent as Even If may be, it is almost certainly not going to return them to the top of the scoreboard.

The final

2008-05-13T19:50:00.003+03:00

With 80% of this year's finalists as yet unknown it is largely pointless prophesying the fates of the five we do have. An awful lot will depend on the songs that qualify from the semi-finals and the order they're drawn in, but certain generalisations can still be made and conclusions drawn.

If the United Kingdom and Germany were ever going to make a dent on the scoreboard it wouldn't have been from the early starting positions they have found themselves in. Followed by anywhere between eight and ten songs that at least half of the audience will probably already have seen and heard, their chances of making any impact are significantly reduced.

At the other end of the final, Spain and Serbia are well-positioned to do much better. The hosts doing well is pretty much a given, although how high they climb on the scoreboard again depends what comes through from the semi-final and where it ends up. Spain is a little more semi-finalist proof, being so oddball, although it could find itself in a clump of novelty entries and suffer as a result. Assuming anyone goes for it in the first.

France sneaks into roughly the last quarter of the draw, and although that's perhaps better than being stuck at the front end of the final it may make little difference. The French entry is in a league of its own and will either work on stage and appeal to the audience or it won't.

Though it goes without saying, I would posit that the finalist most likely to do well is Serbia, while I see Germany and the United Kingdom jostling with each other for the Big 4's wooden spoon. Until then... on with the reviews!

Poll results - Semi-final 2

2008-05-13T19:00:00.003+03:00

With my reviews of the songs from the second semi-final now complete and roughly the same number of people having voted in this poll as in the earlier one, I have decided to close it now before taking a look at the finalists.

Seven out of the ten songs predicted by voters to make it to the final match mine, with the exceptions being Switzerland (most notably), Iceland and Latvia. In their place I have Croatia, Denmark and Malta going through.

The ten countries that will qualify based on the results of this poll (number one being the one that received the most votes and so on) are:

01. Turkey
02. Sweden
03. Ukraine
04. Switzerland
05. Portugal
06. FYR Macedonia
07. Albania
08. Bulgaria
09. Iceland
10. Latvia

There was less consensus in this poll than the first, with only 5 songs receiving the support of every other voter. The results also suggest that at the lower end of the televoting top nine as many as four or five qualification spots could be very open, not to mention who gets the jury wildcard.

The poll is nevertheless quite clear in suggesting that half of the qualifiers should come from the very start and very end of the semi-final, and that Lithuania's chances of making it to the final are as slim as those of the Czech Republic.

A poll for each of the five finalists will be open shortly. Get voting!

Semi-final 2: an overview

2008-05-13T18:15:00.002+03:00

Unlike last time, taking an individual look at all of the songs in the Thursday semi-final has given me more confidence about which songs will qualify and which ones definitely won't - but not which ones will qualify in place of those whose chances seem non-existent. Giving them the once over in order produced the following thoughts.

The first third of the semi-final, with the glaring exception of Lithuania, is strong enough to produce almost half of its qualifiers, although whether it does is another matter. I'm also on the fence as to whether Sweden can qualify with room to spare in such close proximity to Ukraine, although I would expect both to get through. Albania stands out after the upbeat beginning to the show for being so reserved and I feel it will win enough support to get through.

From the mid-section, Switzerland does not sound as convincing as it might, although Croatia, Bulgaria and Denmark are all distinct enough from one another to win votes after the less inviting run from the Czech Republic to Latvia (which still makes you sit up and take notice, but mostly because it is so irritating).

If the last third or so of the semi-final produces the same number of qualifiers this part of the contest normally does, I really don't know which they'll be. Portugal closes the show with a punch that should see them do well, and Malta may benefit from being bookended by Hungary and Cyprus, though I'm not sure it will be enough to qualify. FYR Macedonia's chances are something of a mystery too.

Again, for what it's worth, the following are the countries whose names I predict will be in the ten envelopes at the end of the night. Repeating myself from last time, they do not necessarily represent who I want to get through; they are based on the assumption that all of the performances will be equally good and equally attractive in their own way; no distinction is made between the nine that qualify through televoting and the jury wildcard; and they're in alphabetical order rather than any anticipated ranking.

- Albania
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Denmark
- FYR Macedonia
- Malta
- Portugal
- Sweden
- Turkey
- Ukraine

Once again I feel I'm on fairly safe ground with about half of them, although picking the last few qualifiers was a struggle. There are fewer songs in the second semi-final that I have as much affection for, which makes it easier in the sense of not 'making sure' my favourites are reflected in my prediction, but trying to figure out what your average European televoter will go for if I don't also makes it harder ;-)

With the rehearsals underway in Belgrade and more of an idea forming of what performances will look like, speculation about how qualification chances are being affected is already rife, although I'll be reserving judgement until the night itself (and probably then still getting a fair few wrong). The first semi-final is a week away today, so we don't have long to wait!

Portugal

2008-05-12T17:42:00.002+03:00

Senhora Do Mar (Negras Águas) Vânia Fernandes

Given the random nature of the themes attributed to Eurovision each year by the host broadcaster, it is at best a coincidence if any of the songs competing in it reflect them. Nothing really captured the spirit of Helsinki’s ‘true fantasy’ in 2007; the conceit of some of the performers and anyone who thought Switzerland would vie for the title arguably came close, but it did produce two songs - the semi-final and final openers Water and Rijeka Bez Imena - which would perhaps be more at home in Belgrade as part of 2008’s ‘confluence of sound’. If so, they would be joined not only by Latvia’s Pirates of the Sea, but also this year’s Portuguese entry, the aptly titled Senhora Do Mar (Negras Águas).

Although as unlike Wolves Of The Sea as is musically possible, Senhora Do Mar does share one thing in common with the Latvian entry: a foreign composer. For the first time in Portugal’s Eurovision history (to the best of my knowledge) it is being represented by a song exclusively produced by someone with no connection to the country. Andrej Babić, responsible for recent entries from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, has branched out and written a pan-Mediterranean power ballad that could come from just about anywhere, despite the melodramatic Balkan overtones. While it is not not Portuguese, it makes Vânia Fernandes’ (or perhaps RTP’s) decision to sing the song in her native language all the more understandable. The result is a true confluence of sound that should, or at least could, see the song going down well from Ibiza to Izmir.

While next to no one is foolhardy enough to predict a maiden victory for Portugal in 2008, there seems to be fairly widespread consensus that Senhora Do Mar is the country’s strongest entry in a long time and that it will see them qualify for the final for the first time in five years. I would agree; while neither the arrangement nor the orchestration are the most imaginative we’ve heard in the contest, they remain effective, and the vocal performance Ms Fernandes puts in is likely to be as substantial as she herself is. The gravitas of her delivery occasionally makes her a little frightening, but that didn’t stop Serbia winning last year with a not altogether dissimilar song (and similarly ponderous staging). It is a song she simply needs to belt out, and that is something she clearly knows how to do.

Portugal’s relative isolation in Eurovision means that Senhora Do Mar is unlikely to have the same pulling power as Molitva, but if it were to get a good draw in the final I wouldn’t be surprised to see it providing the nation with its best result to date, at least in terms of points. The country has never cracked three figures in the contest, but this year may be different. It brings Thursday night’s proceedings to a powerful close, and though I can’t see it giving them their first ever top five finish in the final, the top ten might not be beyond their reach if there is a dearth of ballads in the Saturday night line-up after the ten qualifiers from the second semi-final are revealed. There is a confluence of more than just sound about the Portuguese entry this year, and their hopes, quite rightly, will be high.

FYR Macedonia

2008-05-11T14:39:00.010+03:00

Let Me Love You Tamara, Vrčak & Adrijan

With the headcount of active participants at Eurovision having almost doubled from the numbers that were taking part in the contest each year less than a decade ago, it was inevitable that steps would have to be taken to distribute them more evenly; thus was the semi-final system born. When it became obvious in the run-up to Helsinki that the semi-final was also bulging around the middle, the two semi-final system was born. However, the conventional wisdom doing the rounds is that it was introduced more as a measure to curb the influence of diaspora voting, thereby producing a more even field of qualifiers in the final. Taking the theory one step further, some even claim it was introduced in direct response to the consistent qualification of one country in particular: FYR Macedonia...

The Balkan republic has made it out of the semi-final every year since 2004 ranked 9th or 10th in the televoting, generally having received a significant proportion of support from its neighbours, and often ahead of countries who have received wider overall support but a slightly smaller total number of points. In some quarters this is seen as being unjust, and the Macedonians’ qualification is regarded as not merely consistent but consistently undeserved. However, voting patterns aside, this fails to take into account the quality of the songs involved, the quality of the performances and the quality of the competition they were up against; and since this in itself is such a subjective issue, it is a very grey area generally to get into. In a way the country seems to have been adopted as an all-purpose scapegoat for the perceived weaknesses of the format of the contest at present, with anything good it may contribute being overlooked as a result.

It seems rather appropriate then that FYR Macedonia should roll up to Beogradska Arena with the beseechingly titled Let Me Love You. While the song commits many of the same sins for which the country has been burned before, both stylistically and in terms of its primary audience, the fact that it is to be performed entirely in English with a decent set of lyrics suggests that Tamara, Vrčak & Adrijan are setting their sights slightly further afield than just the other side of Lake Ohrid. It also sets them apart from hosts Serbia, fellow former Yugoslav states Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia and neighbour Albania, who have all largely or entirely eschewed the international language and therefore much chance of being understood by anyone outside of the region who wouldn’t automatically vote for them anyway.

Whether anyone does though is another thing. Let Me Love You being similar in feel to the 2006 Macedonian entry Ninanajna may be a good thing in the sense that Elena Risteska delivered the country its best result to date in Athens, falling only two places short of a top ten finish. The Balkans have a fondness and aptness for contemporary R&B that is only rivalled on the continent by France, and although it is not a genre that has enjoyed a lot of success at Eurovision, Let Me Love You is a fairly strong advertisement for it and may find wider appeal. The least successful part of the song is the rap, which always sounds forced when delivered by skinny white guys, and here at times it sounds far too close to the more cringe-worthy moments of Moldova’s 2006 entry Loca for comfort. That aside, Tamara’s vocals suit the song and the orchestral arrangement accompanying the hip hop elements is one of the most prominent and effective this year.

If the yardstick of whether the two semi-final system works is FYR Macedonia not qualifying for Saturday’s final, I suspect that a lot of people will, ironically, be disappointed. On the assumption that the three leads put in a performance on the night that is more together than the one they gave at the national final in Skopje, or that at least comes across as more together, I can see them earning their onward ticket fairly convincingly. Sadly, they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t: progress and a wave of sarcasm and wrath will be unleashed on them by an exasperated West in search of an excuse; fail to progress and those same people will call it ‘justice’. (Which is something you could only call it if the isolated Thursday night performance was pants.) Despite having perhaps benefitted most from the draw, I reckon - and hope - that if Let Me Love You does qualify it will do so at least equally on merit.

Cyprus

2008-05-11T14:39:00.009+03:00

Femme Fatale Evdokia Kadi

As one of the most flexible formats around, it's no surprise that Eurovision accommodates such a diverse range of songs and performances. Alongside the usual plethora of pop, we have already seen that the 2008 edition of the contest is interspersed with OTT theatre and show numbers straight out of musicals in the likes of the Azeri and Lithuanian entries. Joining their ranks in Belgrade will be Cyprus, who are bringing their own melodrama to the stage with Evdokia Kadi's Femme Fatale. Less the Moulin Rouge of the Nicosian cabaret scene and more your twenty-euros-a-head end-of-package-tour dinner-and-show tune, it is one of the most characterful entries in this year's contest, but at the same time one of its most inscrutable.

Reminiscent in style and execution of 2002 winner I Wanna from Latvia, Femme Fatale is a hundred times more authentic but about thirty years too late. Like many of the songs it will be competing against in the second semi-final it sounds like it has been extracted from another era and doesn't have any idea what its aim in life is, at least in terms of Eurovision. Part of this is down to the fact that the music, while neatly and interestingly arranged, has such a narrow focus: a razzle-dazzle take on what is essentially the sirtaki, it is not the kind of thing your average Eurovision viewer is going to be an avid fan of. Part of it also comes from the use of Greek, which exacerbates the sense of it being so passé. Choosing the language over English or French makes sense in context, but this year more than ever seems a foolhardy move to have made.

Bereft of 12 points from its core audience, Cyprus is nevertheless unlikely to come away empty-handed from the second semi-final, with the Greek diaspora on the mainland as well as in the UK sure to pick up their phones and vote it out of last place. I don't expect Femme Fatale to get anywhere close to crossing the line ahead of ten other countries though, and neither do I fancy it as the juries' wildcard, which if nothing means that Greece's douze should be more unpredictable come Saturday night. In the event that the Cypriots are faced with another result in Belgrade which is much more comme ça than comme ci and they persist with the French cliches as song titles, what's betting next year's will be C'Est La Vie?

Malta

2008-05-09T17:25:00.002+03:00

Vodka Morena

If Eurovision is the music television entertainment equivalent of cheese and crackers, Malta has to be one of the foremost cheese-producing nations in Europe. Like Denmark, they roll out one national final after another that shows no signs of awareness of what the contest has become, instead choosing to believe that their own brand of contest entry is something the audience will buy regardless of whether they want it or not. The tiny Mediterranean nation manufactures Europop of a kind that is regularly served up but doesn't always go down very well, and its last two results in the contest have perhaps proven that consumer tastes are changing. Unlike Denmark, Malta has responded: while still providing viewers with their usual dose of tack in Belgrade, the country has repackaged it in Clayton's novelty entry form* and will be serving up a three-minute shot of Vodka designed to go straight to the heads of televoters everywhere – especially those in the East.

Although not one of the songs this year that people tend to think of when asked to ponder the fate of the 'joke entries', the Maltese ditty more than any other takes its cue from last year's runner-up, Verka Serduchka's Dancing Lasha Tumbai, and is one of the most transparent and targeted campaigns of 2008. At least 80% proof in its intent to win over the east through blatant product placement, it must rank as one of the most shrewd (if not subtle) entries in the country's 20 plus-year history in the contest. Of course, its allure is not restricted to the traditionally vodka-swilling lands behind the old iron curtain, but anyone across the continent who enjoys a tipple and drunken televoters everywhere. The only problem here – the biggest problem – is whether such a target audience will be watching on a Thursday night. The song comes across as one which would do much if it were automatically qualified for the final than had to make it out of a mid-week semi-final, and this may prove its greatest hurdle.

This bodes well for Vodka though if it does receive a licence to trade on the weekend. It also assumes that the only people likely to vote for the song are those who identify with its message, and that may not be the case at all. It is one of the most immediate entries this year and is well-placed in the second semi-final for maximum impact, so even those who don't have the shot glasses lined up for their Eurovision drinking games may fall for its well-produced but still rather cheap brand of distilled pop. The song itself couldn't be any more obvious, meaning people will either down it in one or refuse it on principle, so the performance will be crucial in selling it. Morena makes an attractive shop girl and suits the song in the sense that her garbled pronunciation could make her a walking advertisement for the product she is pushing, but after Csézy's plum tones this almost comes as a relief.

Despite its appeal I'm not entirely convinced of Vodka's chances of qualification. It is brazen enough to earn some superficial support but, as with the majority of Maltese output, it's simply not that good: after the initial zing you realise it's actually pretty tasteless and doesn't have the kick it ought to. Nor as novelty entries go is it particularly novel. Then again, that could probably be said of a lot of songs in the second semi, whatever it says on the label, so Morena may yet slur and stumble her way into the final. Either way it will be interesting to see how the island nation recovers from its hangover.

*From an old Australian TV commercial for a non-alcoholic alcoholic beverage bottled to resemble whiskey, which came with the slogan “the drink you're having when you're not having a drink”. If you were wondering.

Hungary

2008-05-08T20:32:00.007+03:00

Candlelight Csézy

In its current incarnation, Eurovision is not something everyone has fully come to grips with. Some newcomers, like Andorra, have struggled to find their feet; some old-timers, like Monaco, have returned and found they couldn't keep pace; while others, like Slovakia, haven't even bothered to give it another try. Until the announcement of their return to the contest in 2005, it seemed that Hungary's contribution to Eurovision would also be restricted to its handful of entries from the 1990s: a modest collection of songs which, apart from their debut, Kinek Mondjam El Vétkeimet, would come away with equally modest results. The country's comeback in Kyiv marked a new beginning for the nation and proved its vote-pulling capacity, as did its 2007 follow-up, but it has yet to earn points in the contest for anything cutting edge or even vaguely contemporary. And that's not about to change in 2008 with the unflinchingly old-fashioned Candelight.

Though the less than linear approach Hungary has taken to Eurovision is reflected in the timelessness of the majority of its entries, this year sees them producing their first that is tangibly outdated. There is a certain irony to the fact that composer Viktor Rakonczai was a member of the boyband who represented Hungary in 1997 with pretty much the only song the country has ever submitted to the contest that sounded like something you might have heard in the charts at the time, because Candlelight sounds like something you would only ever have heard while watching Eurovision ten to fiteen years ago. Even the dance remix of the original Hungarian version - which peaked the interest of [clearly nostalgic] fans prior to the national final and led to some confusion as to which version would be used - comes across like it was produced in about 1993.

Everything conspires to make Candlelight feel out of time, both literally and metaphorically. The original version of the song fitted very neatly within the bounds of the traditional ballad, but the new arrangement is almost too balanced, with a bridge stuck right in the middle and intros and outros tacked on, while still failing to resolve the awkwardness of the transition into the first verse and the chorus after the middle eight. Delivering all of this is Csézy, competent and attractive in an off-puttingly prim kind of way, who sounds like she thinks she has entered the Eurovision Diction Contest, with a speech therapist wanging up her mouth as she sings. When she does, the lyrics tell an enduring tale we've all heard before. The few lines of Hungarian here work a lot better than the one in Catalan in the Andorra entry Casanova: they make more sense in context, even if they serve much the same purpose, and seem slightly less like pointless pandering. But only just.

Still, each to his own. I'm sure there will be a slice of the audience watching the second semi-final from Belgrade who is taken with Candlelight's slightly fusty if not exactly superannuated charms. Not enough to see it qualify, mind you, and I don't subscribe to the view that because it sounds old-fashioned it will get the nod from the juries. Its draw is not as favourable as it first appears: sandwiched between the Georgian anthem and the alcohol-fuelled Maltese entry, it may easily be forgotten - and if it is, I hope Hungary is inspired to try something a little more of its time for their next entry.

Georgia

2008-05-08T20:32:00.002+03:00

Peace Will Come Diana Gurtskaya

Eurovision may be many things, but it is not an exercise in intellectualism. It is three hours of brainless entertainment one Saturday night each year in which the best the songs and performances can generally hope to be labelled is 'clever' in the sense of 'astute'. Anyone who gets ideas above their station tends to be scorned and/or shunned, although sincerity and inventiveness are often rewarded. At the best of times it runs the gamut of cheese and kitsch and the gauntlet of an audience with at least one eyebrow raised. It may be as trite, tacky, corny and camp as it ever was, even impressive on occasion, but one description that is becoming harder to apply to it and its entries in an era when having the right song is more important than having a good song is naïve. This year's is without doubt the most calculated contest to date in terms of the types of songs and performances that have been entered, making those that aren't (as) premeditated all the more obvious. And there is nothing in 2008 that seems quite as naïve as the Georgian entry, Peace Will Come.

Of course, that depends whether you consider sending a blind woman to perform an anthem in which she is basically saying “if I can see this why can't you” to be naïve, and many would say that it is actually about as studied as you can get. The mere fact that the song is a peace anthem though is what makes it naïve: as well-meant as these things possibly are, they frequently come across as disingenuous, especially in a contest where people don't necessarily want a song with a message. Eurovision may be designed to bring people together, but no one wants the credo shoved down their throats, and in that sense what you are saying is bound to fall on deaf ears. That may even be in spite of the fact that the message is pertinent to the situation in the country it is representing, as with Peace Will Come and the instability plaguing Georgia. In this day and age people are cynical enough without Eurovision force-feeding them moral virtue. Wrong audience.

The song itself is naïve too, albeit more in the sense of being simple and guileless than lacking sophistication. As a piece of music it is rather attractive; without the lyrics I would be much more disposed to listen to it, although in its defence it is structured and arranged in a way that reflects the quiet but persistent power Diana Gurtskaya preaches. (Mind you, that's probably down to the lyricist; it depends which came first, the words or the music.) Never less than consistent, it remains tethered to a message and a messenger who are equally grating in their way and between them gets rather lost. Whether anyone will notice is doubtful, as I suspect Ms Gurtskaya may attract any attention that is being paid. Apart from the ill-conceived choreography that is likely to accompany the song (if past performances are anything to go by, including the super-twee How Long from last year's Belarusian national final), she has a voice that is permanently on the verge of being unattractive.

Not that Peace Will Come will be wholly without supporters in Belgrade. Diana Gurtskaya may be a complete unknown in most of the countries in the second semi-final, but she is likely to earn herself fairly high marks from the likes of Belarus and Ukraine and anywhere else on the fringes of the Russian entertainment roundabout. I just doubt she will from anyone else. Needless to say I am disappointed with Georgia for not only not maintaining the high standard of their debut but for going from one extreme to the other in the space of a year: their 2008 entry is diametrically opposed to Visionary Dream and shows none of its originality or depth. It is harmless enough, but unlikely to arouse anything in viewers that will get them to vote for it en masse. And in a contest where that is basically the whole point, what could possibly be more naïve?

Poll results - Semi-final 1

2008-05-07T13:51:00.003+03:00

With more than 50 people having voted in the prediction poll for the first semi-final, I decided to close it early so that I could start a similar one for the second semi, prior to completing my reviews of it.

Interestingly (for me), nine out of the ten songs predicted to qualify for the final by voters matched mine, with the only exception being Slovenia, who more people feel are likely to make it than my dark horses Teräsbetoni for Finland.

The ten countries that will qualify based on the results of this poll (number one being the one that received the most votes and so on) are:

01. Greece
02. Russia
03. Armenia
04. Norway
05. Bosnia and Herzegovina
06. Ireland
07. Romania
08. Azerbaijan
09. Slovenia
10. Israel

There was a high level of consensus in the poll, with virtually all of the top 7 ranked songs receiving the support of every other voter. The results also suggest that the final qualification spot could be a close race between a handful of countries, although in reality of course it will be the juries who decide.

Apart from Israel, the poll suggests that the early part of the draw in the first semi-final could be a qualification-free zone, with things looking particularly grim for newcomers San Marino. Still, everything comes down to those three minutes in Belgrade, and they may yet surprise us all.

The poll for the second semi-final is now open. Happy voting!

Denmark

2008-05-05T16:46:00.006+03:00

All Night Long Simon Mathew

There are many reasons why people love and loathe Eurovision in equal measure. A lot of them are shared: for every person who despises the contest for being camp and contrived there will be someone who likes it for that very reason; for every detractor who sees it as the embodiment of everything that is banal about pop music and popular culture there will be somebody who celebrates it. And for every country who responds to the criticism and attempts to push the envelope there will be one who ignores the call, choosing to take the contest for what it is and continue in the same easy-listening, uncomplicated vein it always has. The country in question, needless to say, being Denmark.

Ever since they returned to the contest in the late '70s after an eleven-year absence the Danes have presented a largely uninterrupted run of entries that are as laid back as they are. With the exception of their 2007 entry Drama Queen, which by its very nature could be seen to be championing a cause, you have to go back as far as 1981's Krøller Eller Ej for anything even resembling an agenda. Their entries tend to plough a straightforward course and are often labelled 'very Danish', although the epithet is generally used less in a derogatory sense than it is as a synonym for three minutes of unexceptional and almost always agreeable music. Which is what they have delivered yet again in 2008 with Simon Mathew and All Night Long.

Immediate, uplifting and virtually the only song in this year's field of 43 to invoke the audience, the Danish entry stands out not only in its semi-final but in the 2008 contest as a whole. It is easy to disregard it for its simplicity, but this would be overlooking the fact that simple songs which are performed well and engage the viewers often do very well. The best example is the 2001 winner, Everybody, which took almost everyone by surprise: an entry with a similar feel in a year where there were no absolute favourites and in which the overall quality of the songs was considered to be lower than in other years. The parallels are evident, particularly in the context of the second semi-final.

Not that I'm suggesting All Night Long will win the whole shebang, but it has the right mix of qualities to see it qualify for the final with room to spare if Mr Mathew & co give a good account of themselves and connect with the audience in the same way that, say, fellow countryman Jakob Sveistrup did in 2005. Apart from anything else it has a cleverly structured arrangement that pulls all of the focus onto the chorus, with the percussion and acoustics having drawn you into it in what must be the nearest musical equivalent to toe-tapping. By the time the song launches itself from the key change into its final minute it's become a quintessential clapalongathon I defy anyone to resist.

The Danish entry never professes to being terribly impressive or even progressive: it's just three minutes of musical entertainment for the masses. Though it has a very Nordic sensibility, it speaks a completely different language to the Icelandic and Swedish entries it is competing against in the second semi-final - one which I feel will be more widely understood and appreciated. Eurovision might not be everyone's idea of a good time, but for those who do watch it I suspect the ostentation-free charm of All Night Long may be very easy to succumb to.

Bulgaria

2008-05-04T14:17:00.007+03:00

DJ, Take Me Away Deep Zone & Balthazar

In its more than 50 years of history the Eurovision stage has been graced with an almost endless variety of musical styles and performances, but is regularly cited for failing to reflect what is really going on in the world of music. Never was this more the case than in the 1990s: though an era that produced some of the contest's finest entries, few of them had anything to do with contemporary music. There were exceptions of course - such as Gina G's Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit for the UK in 1996 - but by and large it was a decade which, for the contest at least, never existed. Ten years later, one of the countries reaping the benefit is Bulgaria: its 2008 entry may sound very nineties, but in a contest where that sound never had the opportunity to be heard at the time it still manages to come across as refreshing and different.

Perhaps ironically then, the song that the instrumental nature and lyrical brevity of DJ, Take Me Away are most reminiscent of is mid-'90s Norwegian winner Nocturne. At just four lines repeated ad infinitum it is no wordsmith's masterpiece, but neither is it meant to be. As with its unlikely stablemate, the words are just there to add a bit of texture to the music, which is the focus of the entire three minutes. Its changes of pace are cleverly effected and only occasionally signposted, meaning that the audience are likely to be kept guessing as to what comes next. This could have backfired on Deep Zone & Balthazar; the minds of the televoters could easily wander, even in the short space of time they will get to say what they have to, but there is a relentless and very appropriate drive to the composition that should keep those watching and listening interested. This produces one of the most effective and immediate openings of any of the songs in this year's contest.

Where DJ, Take Me Away may come unstuck, if not in its musical minimalism, is in the performance itself. Limited lyrics or not, there is plenty of scope for the vocals to be dodgy, and should any or all of Deep Zone & Balthazar get a bit overexcited and litter the song with wooing and blathering as they did during the winner's reprise at the Bulgarian national final, failing to realise that the lack of human intervention is the song's strength, they may do themselves out of a qualification spot. On the other hand, if they come across convincingly, having toned down some of the more obviously dated visual references without making the whole thing sterile, they should find themselves well-placed to have a kind of Romania 2006 effect. Especially if they're also given some well-judged staging, lighting and camerawork.

Having only made the final once it is difficult to judge whether Bulgaria has been disadvantaged by the draw, although they will be buoyed by the fact that countries like Cyprus and FYR Macedonia - which showed solid support not only for Water in 2007 but also for their non-qualifying entries in 2005 and 2006 - are also present in the second semi-final. They have also done well to be drawn between the Latvian and Croatian entries on one side and virtually all of the remaining entries on the other, most of which are dated in their own way and from which it stands out a mile. It might be the '90s ten years too late at Eurovision, but I nevertheless suspect that DJ, Take Me Away will sound modern enough to most televoters to see it through to the final.

Croatia

2008-05-04T12:40:00.005+03:00

Romanca Kraljevi Ulice & 75 Cents

"Age is no barrier" is not a saying that is regularly applied to Eurovision. True, after a bunch of primary school children represented their countries in the mid- to late-'80s the rule was introduced that all of the performers must be at least old enough to avoid allegations of exploitation, but there is no upper limit; there is simply a perception that the contest, especially in its current form, is one for younger singers. The fortunes of more mature artists though have been no more or less mixed than those of their up-and-coming counterparts, with the back-to-back victories of Denmark and Estonia in 2000 and 2001 setting new records for oldest winners and thus proving that the idea of Eurovision being for the 'kids' is something of a misconception. One country that seems to have taken heed is Croatia: not content with providing the contest with its oldest ever singer last year, they have outdone themselves in 2008 and set the bar almost 20 years higher.

Like the rosy-cheeked old dear who stole the show for Moldova in 2005, the true star of Romanca is not Croatian crooners Kraljevi Ulice but grand old man 75 Cents. Looking doddery and ever so slightly lost while sounding like everyone's pop about to deliver a "when I was your age" spiel, he is charming and lovable. Though his involvement is really no less exploitative than sticking someone an eighth of his age behind the microphone, it is much more effective and adds a further touch of character to the song that would be conspicuous in its absence were the message to be delivered by someone still wet behind the ears. More to the point, it is not only effective and appropriate to the song, but also very astute in terms of the kinds of gimmicks a Eurovision entry requires these days to win over the televoters.

In that sense it is tempting to lump Romanca in with the various other 'novelty' entries doing the rounds in 2008, but take 75 Cents out of the equation and we have one of the year's most inventively arranged and substantial songs and some of its best lyrics. In purely musical terms it is Croatia's most solid entry for a number of years, well-founded and multi-layered, and composed in a way that reveals something new to you each time you listen to it. Even in the unlikely event that it failed to win the support of the voters, it would have to be a favourite to win the backing of the juries.

Having said that, Romanca is so personable that it should resonate with anyone in the audience over a certain age and still appeal to those below it. I fully expect it to qualify for the final, and once it gets there I am just as convinced that virtually the entire field of tall poppies will be forced to take their hats off to the voice of experience. Croatia has failed to make the top ten every year since 2001, albeit coming close on several occasions, and 2008 is the year in which I feel they will make a triumphant return to it.

Latvia

2008-05-03T19:46:00.004+03:00

Wolves Of The Sea Pirates Of The Sea

One of the aims of Eurovision has always been to bring the people of the continent together through song. Back in the day, mini-states like Monaco and Luxembourg could always be relied on to foster this noble cause by shipping in boatloads of foreign composers and artists to perform their entries, and despite their absence the tradition continues to this day. Replacement principality Andorra has to look beyond its borders virtually every year for material, while debutants San Marino were proud to announce that at least one member of Miodio actually lives there. However, the plundering of other countries is larger in scope than it has ever been and far from being restricted to dots on the map. There is a regular exchange of composers and singers across the Baltic Sea, for example, and nobody is immune. However, for employing the dubious services of a Swedish crew for the second year in a row, one stands out: Latvia. And in Wolves Of The Sea you have to question whether the spoils were really worth the effort.

While seeing its appeal, I took an instant dislike to the Latvian entry in Helsinki, and the song that will sail under the country's flag in Belgrade is just as contrived. What I disliked most about Questa Notte was not its cod opera status, but that it bore no connection to Latvia whatsoever: although the line-up of Bonaparti.lv was largely local, the song was produced by Swedes and fronted by an Italian who basically hijacked the entire process and milked the song's Italianness for all it was worth. To all intents and purposes it was the Italian entry Italy hadn't entered. And although no such claims are being made about Wolves Of The Sea, it is equally unrepresentative of the country it is representing. I am not one to advocate the return of language rules or that a reflection of national culture be enforced in Eurovision, but at the same time if your entry says absolutely nothing about your country (apart, perhaps, from televoters having bad taste) I don't really see the point. Yes, the contest is about finding something that will appeal to people all over the continent, but still. Sailing under false colours and all that.

Not that I would expect Pirates Of The Sea to come anywhere close to victory in Belgrade. If it was the Latvian entry in Junior Eurovision I might find it entertaining; as is, it brings a new level of tackiness to the contest and is easily the most demeaning of this year's novelty entries, with cheap production values compounded by a very unattractive set of vocals. True, Eurovision is far from being high-brow entertainment, and the song is immediate enough that it would perhaps see them qualifying if the audience were in the mood for a bit of pantomime, but since 'big name' DJ Bobo was given a definitive thumbs down in Helsinki with a similarly cheap number I live in hope that it sinks like a stone. To me it is but further proof that Latvia has become the scurvy of the ESC, and I will despair if the televoters fail to take the wind out of their sails.

Belarus

2008-05-03T17:55:00.002+03:00

Hasta La Vista Ruslan Alehno

No country has contributed quite the same element of mystery to Eurovision in recent years as relative newcomers Belarus. Taking the will-they-or-won't-they aspect of Albania's makeovers that one step further, they constantly play with the audience in a guessing game where you can never even be sure that their song, once chosen, will actually make it to the contest. Since joining in 2004, two of their five selected entries have been dumped in favour of something regarded as more appropriate; one has been completely rearranged; and three have been significantly reworked. But apart from 2007's Work Your Magic, which came fully-formed (once it turned up at all) and delivered the country its first final berth and a top ten finish, pretty much all of these reinventions have been for nought - a trend they will be hoping to reverse in Belgrade with Hasta La Vista.

Perhaps deterred by the lack of success enjoyed by their neighbours Ukraine on their 2003 debut with a song of the same name in a similar style, the Belarusian team have ditched the disco ball beneath which Hasta La Vista claimed victory in the national final and given the song a shot of testosterone. The transformation could hardly be more complete. As with the changes made to the Albanian entry, which were more in keeping with what the song was saying, Belarus beefing up theirs has lent it the bite it was missing in its limp-wristed earlier incarnation, in which Ruslan's dissing of his former lover was as camp as a row of tents. With a pop rock backing of electric guitars and prominent percussion it is now delivered with more attitude and - despite the orchestration - less melodrama. In other words: more effectively.

Needless to say this is relative to the original. It is a perfectly workable piece of music with a perfectly workable tune, but there remains something uninspiring about Hasta La Vista. It does its best to challenge the theory that you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear, but still shows up as fake and unoriginal, and could go either way in the second semi-final. With a coup de théâtre as clever as the one they put together last year it might do rather well, but Ruslan has never come across to me as someone who feels comfortable on the stage or, for that matter, with a microphone in his hand. I have yet to see or hear anything that suggests he will produce more than a merely passable performance on the night, and that may not be enough. Not when half of the points that might otherwise come the way of Belarus are stuck in the first semi-final.

Still, Hasta La Vista remains a bit of an unknown. In a couple of lines that reflect its metamorphosis, Ruslan sings "The story is close to the final cut / It won't be the end but a running start", and he could well be describing the song's chances of qualification. I suspect it may make it to the final, not entirely convincingly, and then do much better once it gets there, but it could just as easily fall flat on the Thursday night and go nowhere. It is inoffensive enough that I won't be bothered if it does qualify, damning it with faint praise though that may be. In any event, it is likely to do better in its current form than it would have had they left it untouched, so the electrotherapy and airbrushing will probably have been worth it either way.

Czech Republic

2008-05-02T20:57:00.002+03:00

Have Some Fun Tereza Kerndlová

As beginnings go, the Czech Republic's Eurovision debut in 2007 could not have been less auspicious. Though coming away with something on the scoreboard (and thus outdoing Lithuania, who ended last with no points on their first outing in 1994), they achieved the feat of garnering just a single point from 41 countries for the rather maladroit Malá Dáma and with it possibly the only 28th place that will ever be seen in the contest. Unperturbed, the country announced its intentions to make a comeback in Belgrade, promising that they had taken their experience in Helsinki on board and would be aiming for something more Eurovision-friendly as their second entry. No more long-haired men in tight jeans shouting in an obscure language. It would be pop, pop, pop all the way.

Unfortunately, Have Some Fun is the very essence of pop only if the genre is defined for you by 1987 and the likes of Sabrina and Samantha Fox. Milas Poli, the Cypriot entry in 1991, may be the closest we ever got to a Stock, Aitken and Waterman production in Eurovision, but the Czech entry in 2008 deserves special mention for sounding like it was recorded using the Calrec soundfield microphone that made the voices of so many PWL singers tolerably listenable. You only need to hear about a minute of this song to realise that Tereza Kerndlová couldn't sing her way out of a paper bag. She has other assets some viewers may appreciate, but one of the most obviously inadequate voices to reach the contest in years. I am prepared for three of the most cringe-inducing minutes we have seen in a long time when she is unleased, untweaked, on the European public.

Just as it is hard to maintain a bit of balance when you like a song, it is equally difficult when you struggle to find any redeeming features. I was fully convinced that my MP3 of Have Some Fun had something wrong with it until I heard the CD version from the official album, when I realised that it is the music itself that is so awkward. Now, I'm all for a minimalist composition, but not when the elements are so disparate and slapped together. The only time the arrangement starts to make sense is in the last two bars of the chorus and in the bridge, but the grating, omnipresent strings and the newly introduced balalaika (surely the least consistent and successful addition to any song this year) swallow everything before them. It doesn't help that the whole thing seems as though it's being powered by a hamster in a wheel, resulting in a very uneven sound.

The Czechs will be hoping for a better result with Have Some Fun than they achieved on their first try, but I'm not sure they're going to get it. Their debut may have been hard to like, but at least it wasn't bland, and this is both. I remarked in my review of Nomads In The Night that I wouldn't be surprised to see Lithuania coming last in the second semi-final, but if they are to be spared that ignominy I can only see it being at the expense of the Czech Republic.

Switzerland

2008-04-30T16:51:00.010+03:00

Era Stupendo Paolo Meneguzzi

Try as they might, there are some countries in Eurovision that rank among no one's friends. Like the gawky boy in the class who spends his entire school life staring out of the window, only occasionally on the same planet as his peers, they are outsiders, forming part of no definable group. Interaction is random, and even if they do sometimes show favour to a particular group or individual it is rarely returned. They are not quick to learn, and what they contribute often bears little relation to what everyone is doing. The fact that they turn up at all seems a matter of routine and is largely overlooked. They may show occasional flashes of brilliance, but these are seen as the exception to the rule and generally met with scepticism. At the same time, as the object of condescension, any attempts they make to apply themselves will usually be championed even if expectations are not high. And of the countries in the 2008 edition of the contest, none of them fits this bill quite as completely as Switzerland.

To say that the Swiss have had a chequered history in the contest since the introduction of televoting would be an understatement; prior to the introduction of the semi-final system they failed to end any higher than fourth last, and on its inauguration scored their biggest ever failure, earning a total of zero points from 32 countries for the ironically titled Celebrate! It would also overlook the fact that they have only made the top ten three times in the past twenty years whoever was voting for them. To an extent they only have themselves to blame, as they have chosen a number of dated and/or lacklustre songs over the years, but this in itself may be the result of constantly having to find a happy medium in a country where three major European languages and the people who speak them come together. Upsetting this balance is the fact that all but a handful of their top 5 results since the introduction of the douze system in 1975 have come from songs in French, making their choice of an entry in Italian this year - a language with which they last made the top ten 17 years ago - somewhat surprising.

That this could even come across as a bold move says a lot about the reputation Switzerland has in the contest, as does the incredulity among people regarding the support Paolo Meneguzzi and Era Stupendo continue to enjoy. The first of this year's entries to be announced and one of the earliest to be unveiled, it took no one by surprise for being old-school Eurovision, but rather for how solidly and pleasantly nostalgic the whole thing is - and while no one really expected it to be making much of an impression once the other 42 entries for Belgrade were known, it is still doing well for itself in fan polls. This, needless to say, is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it suggests that there is something comfortable and inoffensive about the song, lending it a broad popularity across the continent which may translate to the contest itself; on the other, it is receiving more or less the same level of endorsement as the 2007 Swiss entry, Vampires Are Alive, which in the circumstances could be considered the kiss of death.

But then what do fans know? It's the mobile-wielding televoters of Europe who count, and whether or not Era Stupendo seems quite as wonderful to them as it does to many contest aficionados remains to be seen. In fact it may be those to whom mobile technology remains a mystery who decide the song's fate: not the most modern of entries among this year's bunch, there is something timeless and sincere about it, and very 1970s Eurovision for its childhood reminiscence and general sentiment. Then again, the efficiency of its arrangement, which makes the song very easy to listen to, may earn it kudos among those who like their music straightforward but still involving. What allows the song to be both - and what represents its greatest advantage over its nearest rival in the second semi-final, the equally dated but much more prim Hungarian entry - is its transformation from piano-led ballad to uptempo pop rock, which is well-timed and effected without any fuss.

Key to the success of the Swiss entry in Serbia will be Paolo Meneguzzi. Though far from the daydreaming dweeb everyone shuns, with smouldering and yet still boyish good looks that should provide three minutes of attractive television, he is nevertheless something of an unknown in terms of the performance he is likely to turn in. In Era Stupendo I feel he has a song that could easily take him places provided he gets it right, but by the same token its naive charms aren't likely to rub off on anyone if he gets it even slightly wrong. On the assumption that he earns his country a ticket to Saturday night's final I would expect the song to receive virtually unanimous backing among fans. I doubt he's in with much of a chance of being crowned head boy, but he may shake off Switzerland's well-worn image and find himself being voted most popular boy in the class.

Albania

2008-04-30T12:49:00.005+03:00

Zemrën E Lamë Peng Olta Boka

One of the most interesting aspects of the run-up to Eurovision is witnessing the evolution of its entries and debating how a rearrangement here or a new set of lyrics there will affect the songs' chances. But as the flood of national final winners are revealed, there is always one that can be discounted from the get-go: the winner of Festivali I Këngës. Albania occupies a unique position in the contest by being the only competing country who gets to unveil its entry twice every year. Generally it is the earliest to be decided, in the dark days of winter, and then the last to be disclosed in its competition form, which is almost always the ESC definition of an extreme makeover. It's like discovering a completely new song.

The Albanian entry in Belgrade, Zemrën E Lamë Peng, bears a number of similarities to its predecessors in terms of how it has been redressed for the contest. Each over the last five years has ended up with a higher BPM than its original as a result of the three-minute rule - which has been expedient in its way, since the composers of all of the songs have been forced to look at them and decide how best to restructure (and in some cases rescore) them to convey the same message more succinctly. The 2008 entry has benefitted from this, with a clearer musical focus and a new vocal delivery that are more attuned to the lyrics. While the backing vocals and the harmonies of the original version were lush, stripping them away and placing the emphasis entirely on Olta Boka makes much more sense and adds a certain fragility that suits the song well.

Composer Adrian Hila and lyricist Pandi Laço will be hoping for more success with Zemrën E Lamë Peng than they achieved with their previous entries, 2005's Tomorrow I Go and 2007's Hear My Plea, and if qualification for the final is the extent of their aspirations they may well come away happy. Taking to the stage straight after the somewhat ham-fisted Lithuanian entry, which itself comes after a run of uptempo rock and pop, and immediately followed by a variety of more pedestrian offerings, the Albanian entry stands out. It has very little direct competition in the second semi-final; its nearest rivals - Hungary's Candlelight and Portugal's Senhora Do Mar (Negras Águas) - are both at the other end of the draw and arguably neither as subtle or sophisticated, something juries may notice even if no one else does. A lot of course will depend on the performance and how naturally and sincerely Olta comes across.

There are two factors though which suggest Zemrën E Lamë Peng may be in with a decent chance of a Saturday night encore, with or without jury support: 10 of the other 18 voting countries in the second semi-final have sent double figures Albania's way over the last four years; and Serbia's victory in Helsinki last year proved that you could still sing a powerful [if in this case more understated] ballad in a language other than English at Eurovision and triumph. In the event that they are rewarded for their efforts with one of those ten envelopes at the end of the second semi-final, the makeover will definitely have been worth it.

Lithuania

2008-04-29T17:35:00.003+03:00

Nomads In The Night Jeronimas Milius

Pointless though it may be, analysis of the draw for the running order is as much a part of the Eurovision experience for many fans as the contest itself. We extrapolate the statistics to within an inch of their life in an attempt to determine who's sitting pretty and who's been given a bum deal, despite the fact that it is only one of a number of variables and can never truly be relied upon in predicting how an entry will fare. However, it does show that a song's chances of success in Eurovision often come down to context. One of the biggest "how did that happen" moments since the introduction of the semi-finals was the unenviable downfall of the Dutch entry Without You in the 2004 final: having qualified in sixth it then plummeted to 20th place, shedding all but 11 of its original 146 points in the process. Some would say it was the result of performing early in the draw rather than last, but it probably had more to do with the German entry that followed (and trounced) it. Either way, it didn't work in context. And if any song in 2008 is certain to suffer a similar fate, it is the Lithuanian entry Nomads In The Night.

The reasons here are nevertheless slightly different. Whereas it was pure bad luck that Re-Union found themselves back-to-back with Max and Can't Wait Until Tonight, an entry that fell into roughly the same category as their own (and was clearly considered more voteworthy), Lithuania's problem is that Jeronimas Milius winning any kind of televote only really made sense in the context of the national final. Despite only beating Aistė Pilvelytė - who would likely be performing Troy On Fire in Belgrade in place of her former backing vocalist had she not fluffed the ending in the LRT TV studios in Vilnius - by a couple of hundred votes, there was something about his performance, combined with the lighting and stage design, that made it stand out. Transplanted to the contest itself, however, it is highly doubtful whether it will have the same effect, and not least because the only Lithuanians who might be tempted to vote for it out of duty are stuck in Ireland in the first semi-final.

Preceded by four songs and performances we can only assume will be much more immediate, Nomads In The Night is simply too awkward to earn widespread appeal. It takes more than two minutes to come together, coinciding with Jeronimas' voice being drowned out most effectively by the music; up to that point the vocal arrangement, though quite complex, just comes across as ungainly. Although some notes do tail off, he is never actually off key, and yet given how difficult it is at times to tell the difference it's much easier to presume that he is - as many people have done to date and are probably likely to do again on May 22. It doesn't help that the emotional tug of the song is overwhelmed by the (unintentional?) sense of it looking and sounding like a minor number from a forgotten 1980s musical adaptation of some obscure Brontë novel.

Not that I'm saying there's no room in Eurovision for minor numbers from forgotten musical adaptations of obscure Brontë novels -not if they're done better, or at least more accessibly - but as niche markets go in a contest designed to find a song everyone can relate to it pretty much takes the cake. Nomads In The Night wouldn't have felt out of place as Lithuania's debut entry back in 1994, but even then it still would have come across as dated. I certainly can't see it winning the jury wildcard (with all those synths? are you kidding?) and apart from a scattering of points thrown its way by Lithuanians who have wandered across the border into Latvia or Belarus I can't see it picking up support anywhere else either. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it earn them their second semi-final wooden spoon in four years - which in the context of the expanded contest is, I suppose, an achievement of sorts.

Ukraine

2008-04-28T17:16:00.003+03:00

Shady Lady Ani Lorak

Some newcomers are much quicker off the mark when it comes to Eurovision than others, getting the point of it or figuring it out with a speed that contradicts how green around the competition gills they are. While some countries have started well and faded and others are yet to make it out of the blocks on their umpteenth attempt, one has exhibited noteworthy nous in picking a formula that relies less on a winning song and more on a winning performance: Ukraine. Apart from their misfiring debut - which was about ten years and several shades of eyeshadow wide of the mark - and the political inevitability of their 2005 entry, each of the country's top ten results, while musically disconnected, has been delivered by a confident female (or female impersonator) you are no more able to take your eyes off than the stage act going on around them.

This bodes well for Ani Lorak and Shady Lady, the Ukrainian entry in Belgrade, as she cements the tradition started by Ruslana in 2004 and continued by Tina Karol two years later of sexy women with mighty lungs belting out catchy if not especially challenging songs. The advantage Ms Lorak has is that she will arguably be presenting a catchier number than either of her predecessors, so it will be interesting to see whether she is able to fill her three minutes to capacity and provide as visually engrossing a performance as Wild Dances or Show Me Your Love. If experience is anything to go by it is guaranteed to be slick and professional, but whether it has that certain something (apart from the performer herself and her ample attributes) that keeps the audience glued to their screens remains, quite literally, to be seen.

Whether the televoters take to what they hear is a matter of taste, but anyone with an appreciation of how a good arrangement works will recognise that the song boasts a clever one from composer Philip Kirkorov - proving he can produce decent music rather than just endless covers of other people's Eurovision songs. Its build and energy is relentless, peaking in the crescendo of the last 30 seconds of the song and having undergone about half a dozen inconspicuous key changes in between. The bass, meanwhile, bubbles away throughout the song, both shadowing and eclipsing the main lines in the music in a neat nod to the theme of Karen 'five former Soviet states down, very few left to go'* Kavaleryan's lyrics, which suit the song perfectly and are very easy to latch on to.

Given it checks off every item on the shopping list of successful Eurovision entries, and that Ukraine has a solid track record with such songs, it is no surprise that Shady Lady will be going into the contest touted as a potential winner. I see it as a cast-iron qualifier from the second semi-final, and not merely because I like it: despite coming so soon after Iceland and Sweden, it pretty much stands alone among the 19 songs on offer, unlikely to be matched for vocal strength and pure glamness by anyone - apart, perhaps, from Charlotte Perrelli. The Ukrainian and Swedish entries may both qualify, but from where I'm standing Shady Lady knocks Hero into a cocked hat, and unlike its closest rival I feel it is assured of a top ten finish in the final (if not higher) whatever its starting position.

*What are the odds on a Kirkorov/Kavaleryan concoction representing Azerbaijan in 2009?

Turkey

2008-04-27T20:05:00.003+03:00

Deli Mor Ve Ötesi

As a musical arena, Eurovision is not a place where many countries do different for the sake of it. When they do pop up among the schlager and the ballads and the ethno pop it usually coincides with an injection of artistic integrity and a leap of faith on the part of broadcasters or their viewers that a square peg has just as much of a place in a round hole. The odds are often worth the gamble: Finland decimated the field in 2006 with Hard Rock Hallelujah; Moldova made an impressive debut in 2005 with Boonika Bate Doba; and Russia earned themselves a hard-fought podium finish in 2003 with Не Верь, Не Бойся. One of the most unexpected detours from the norm though came in the form of the infectious ska of the Turkish entry For Real, which brought the country a respectable fourth place on home soil in 2004. That success is something Turkey will be hoping to repeat this year, with TRT having once again employed lateral thinking in sending the alternative rock band Mor ve Ötesi to Belgrade with Deli.

Though its impact in testing the limits of the Eurovision format may have been diluted by the styles that have crept into the competition in recent years, the song is perfectly placed to stand out in the second semi-final, preceded and followed by two of the 2008 edition's biggest favourites, which are largely in competition with one another more than anyone else and represent a more standard pop genre. Bar the faded denim rock of the Belarusian entry, Mor ve Ötesi will also stand alone on the Thursday night in musical terms, and given the right production values I can't see how it will fail to impress. No one seems to be doubting the abilities of the boys from the band to deliver live, so unless they introduce something very odd to their performance it should be a very solid one. It's the kind of song where they only really have to stand there, sing and play their instruments, after all.

Which is not to insinuate that the song is in any way simplistic or unimaginative. On the contrary, it boasts an arrangement that cleverly reflects the story that unfolds in its lyrics - the bass and electric guitars and synths almost interpreting the turmoil spilling from the lips of disarmingly seductive lead singer Harun Tekin - and one of the most solid structures of any of the songs competing in this year's contest. The uncompromising quality of both is stark when compared to the paint-by-numbers approach of the Swedish entry, which the audience will hopefully be only mildly dazzled by before Turkey perform and reinforce for the audience that you can actually do a song for Europe without adhering to a very tired formula.

In a perfect televoting world this should be enough to see Turkey qualify, but Deli has two things working against it. One is the fact that half or more of the people who normally pick up their phones and dial the maximum 20 times for the country - which is to say Turkish expats - will be having to make do with Azerbaijan in the first semi-final, significantly reducing their chances of otherwise virtually assured qualification. (In the event that the massed viewers of Europe prove to be philistines where good music is concerned and the song fails to finish in the top nine of the semi-final, I place my faith in the back-up juries to see them through; nothing else really touches it in the second semi-final.*) The other is the language question, although I'm clinging to the hope that Molitva winning for Serbia in Helsinki is a sign that it's really not an issue.

As much as anything else, Deli stands out as one of very few songs in the second semi-final that doesn't make Eurovision seem preoccupied with sounding like it's from any other era than the present. *As you have probably gathered, however, it is one of my favourite 2008 entries, which means that maintaining any sense of objective composure in regard to it is more of a challenge. Still, I feel eschewing the path of least resistance is something it should be rewarded for, especially given the country we're dealing with. It may represent something of a square peg, but it is one of the most well-rounded songs in this year's contest.

Sweden

2008-04-26T22:49:00.002+03:00

Hero Charlotte Perrelli

Never a contest of cutting-edge music, Eurovision is great for nostalgia. Penning reviews of the 43 songs competing in it this year, all of them designed to serve much the same purpose, has taken me back to my junior high school days and endless English classes on essay structure: motivators, theses, topic sentences and clinchers, plus the all-important art of paraphrasing. If you want what you're saying to stand any chance of convincing your audience, you have to have all of these things and know how to put them together. If you have several things to say and they all need to come across, you should also be skilled in masquerading rehashed material in a way that is authoritative enough to outweigh any sense of it having all been heard before. Not that the approach is unique to writing; the same applies to music, especially to Eurovision, and to one country more than any other: Sweden.

“Everything has a beginning and everything comes to an end,” sings Charlotte Perrelli in the opening lines of Hero, the Swedish entry in Belgrade, and the country's obsession with systematic schlager is the exception that proves the rule. As one of the more consistently successful nations in the contest in recent years it is easy to see why Sweden would want to stick to a winning formula, but at the same time that success tends to disguise the fact that they have not sent anything remotely resembling modern music to Eurovision in a very long time. Not that they are required to, of course, but it is particularly obvious this year when they find themselves in close quarters with the equally uptempo entries from Iceland and Ukraine and will be followed on stage in Belgrade by one of the few songs in the 2008 contest that proudly wears its individualism on its sleeve.

As any writer worth his salt knows, structure is nothing without content. Whether you're putting together an essay or arranging three minutes of pop, the framework you use will only ever be as good as the bits you use to connect it all together. This is where Hero works best, at least in a musical sense: what expectations you might have of it are never subverted, and what it presents it does so with a self-assurance borne of knowing you pressed all the buttons in the right order and made it sound pretty good in the process. Granted, this is not the most arduous of tasks when, like all good authors, you pilfer the best bits of other people's work (the most blatant example here being the much vaunted key change, which is lifted straight from It's Raining Men).

Presentation-wise it's more of the same, but being the visual creatures we are, this could be the start of the song's undoing: slick to the point of robotic, it is performed with a consumate professionalism that lacks any kind of character or charm. It certainly doesn't help that Ms Perrelli fits the role of automaton so perfectly; she looks like the love child of Donnatella Versace and Kryten from Red Dwarf and only adds to the sense of the whole thing being far too plastic for its own good. Hero would also be marked down for its lyrics if anyone set much store by them, as they are some of the most meaningless of any song to compete in Eurovision in quite some time. On a superficial listening they give the impression that you're dealing with an anthem; closer inspection reveals nothing more than a series of largely disconnected maxims and rhyming dictionary economy.

But that's pop for you, which is why a song that should be one of the least appealing entries of the year works so well. Sweden have a knack of putting two and two together and almost always coming up with four, and while it still might not amount to much, it's enough for most people. The fact that Ms Perrelli is virtually guaranteed to put in a flawless vocal performance should be enough, in context, to see them qualify, even if half of their fan base has tickets to the Tuesday night show. A lot will depend on whether the televoters are happy to allow two big-voiced ladies with stomping pop numbers through or whether they will restrict themselves to the one, in which case I wouldn't want to bet on the outcome of a head-to-head with Ukraine. There is always one fan favourite each year knocked out in the preliminary stages, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the Swedes this year.

The good that could come of Hero ending up as the 2008 contest's most high profile casualty would be if Sweden were to start thinking about changing their strategy, and bringing something fresh to the table rather than wheeling out the same thing year after year. Whatever the composition, playing with the structure and mixing up your content often leads to better writing and lends your voice more authority. DIY schlager is an integral part of the Eurovision experience and a surefire crowd pleaser given who you're playing to, ticking all of their boxes, but taking both the audience and yourselves out of their comfort zone, even if only occasionally, can only be a good thing.

Iceland

2008-04-26T17:58:00.002+03:00

This Is My Life Euroband

Given it's a contest designed to find a song that an adequate number of people identify with closely enough to bother to pick up their phones and vote it to victory, it's odd that anthems are so few and far between in Eurovision. All the more so when its biggest winner prior to the 2004 expansion was Love Shine A Light, a textbook example if ever there was one. Looking at the 2008 field, most are agreed that the nearest we come to such sentiment is Georgia's Peace Will Come, and yet after a basically anthem-free Tuesday night out, the second semi-final seems relatively bursting at the seams with them. It largely depends on what your definition of an anthem is: if it extends beyond the well-intentioned and means you can swap your lighter for a glowstick, you won't find a more uplifting paean in Belgrade than the Icelandic entry This Is My Life.

After the opening of the first semi-final with arguably one of the least exciting songs competing in it, the Thursday contest kicks off in the best traditions of '90s covers of '70s disco and will probably cement for many people what Eurovision is about. Very much in the gay-guy-and-fat-girl mould of anthem that tells an empowering story of triumphing over issues and seeing the fabulousness in life, it is as unapologetic as the contest itself in its intent and expression. Delivered with a sense of conviction that belies any insecurities and shortcomings, but also with a sense of fun that shows it's not taking itself too seriously, it steamrolls its way into your affections and leaves you feeling churlish if you point out how hackneyed it all is.

Iceland's biggest problem is that while its entries are almost invariably likeable, this rarely translates into votes. The total number of points they have received from countries south-east of the Baltic in recent years has barely made it into double figures, and considering it was the lack of support from this corner of the continent that scuppered Selma's chances of taking the title in 1999 with All Out Of Luck - a song broadly similar to This Is My Life - the likelihood of them earning it this time around is not high. True, they will have numbers on their side in Serbia, but not enough to make qualification any more of a certainty. They will have to hope that the occasional point sent their way by the likes of Belarus and Croatia translates into something more grateful for them having gotten the show off to a cracking start.

That's assuming your average televoter will have the wherewithal to distinguish between the glitz overload that is three quarters of the first four songs and still find in favour of Iceland. Its status sets it apart from the affectation of anthemhood and more straightforward pop of the Swedish and Ukrainian entries that follow, but the fact that it only truly speaks to a minority of the audience may nullify the impact of its message and see the country miss out yet again on a place in the final. Should life in the fabulous world of Eurovision prove not quite as fabulous as promised, let's hope for consistency's sake that Regína and Friðrik are sanguine in defeat.

Semi-final 2

2008-04-25T13:38:00.001+03:00

The opening of the second semi-final is in some ways a counterpart to the close of the first, with a number of songs tipped for qualification all clustered together early in the run. But unlike the first semi-final, the draw for the running order here may not have helped them at all. If they are to qualify, they will have to make an immediate impact that outlasts the dozen songs that come after them.

The benefit, of course, is that the opening salvo represents a very upbeat start to the second semi-final. It will be interesting to see whether the likes of Sweden and Ukraine work with or against each other, and how the energetic launch to Thursday night will affect the chances of more sedate entries such as Albania's.

I have a feeling that the countries that make it to the final will reflect the distribution of the songs in this semi-final. For better or worse, Latvia is fairly well placed to stand out in the middle part of the draw, as are the Croatian and Bulgarian entries that follow it, although their hopes could be dashed by commercial intervention.

Portugal will be hoping that their wildcard choice to go last will pay off, and in view of the kinds of songs and performances that will precede them, they may well earn their long-awaited place in the final. Denmark too could confound everyone in their choice of 13th. Whether inveterate qualifiers and fellow wildcarders FYR Macedonia are as lucky remains to be seen.

Predictions are no easier to make for this semi-final than the first in terms of who will qualify, although there are roughly the same number who seem almost certain to be back on Saturday. Beyond that the playing field is slightly more diverse and therefore even - but if I had to nominate which semi I thought was more likely to produce surprises, I would say this one.

Poll results

2008-04-25T13:20:00.002+03:00

Before moving on to semi-final 2, a quick look at the results of the first poll. The question was: "Which of these countries do you think are most likely to qualify from their semi-final for the first time in 2008?"

Two entries clearly stood out. Almost two out of every three respondents believe that Senhora Do Mar (Negras Águas) from the second semi will see Portugal qualifying for the final for the first time in five years, while roughly every other person feels that the Azeri debut Day After Day is sure to qualify from the first semi-final.

Only one other country enjoyed the support of more than 20% of respondents (Iceland) while less than one in five placed their faith in the remaining entries. Things look especially bleak for the Czech Republic, Poland and San Marino, with less than one in ten expecting them to make the final.

As was rightly pointed out to me, Croatia qualified from both the 2004 and 2005 semi-finals, making their inclusion in the poll redundant. How I completely forgot both I have no idea. :)

With my review of the songs from the first semi-final now complete, the new poll is about the ten countries you expect (not hope) to qualify for the final. The poll will remain open until I have completed my review of the songs from the second semi-final. Happy voting!

Semi-final 1: an overview

2008-04-24T12:27:00.001+03:00

Predictions are a bugger of a thing to make at the best of times when it comes to Eurovision, let alone when you've listened to each of the songs individually about a hundred times in an effort to be objective about each of them and can therefore no longer see the wood for the trees. Making them on the basis of the studio versions alone is even more foolhardy - however good the songs themselves might be, it's the performances that count. You can't even tell from rehearsals really how something is going to do; it all comes down to those three brief and often brutal minutes. You can gain a general idea of whether something's going to work, of course, but in a contest where rewarding quality is not necessarily very high on people's agendas, nothing is ever for certain. Nor should it be. And not that it should or indeed could stop us from making our predictions, however pointless.

Examining the songs in the Tuesday semi-final one at a time has shored up some of my convictions and made me waver in terms of others. Lining them up in order though and giving them one proper listen has produced its own surprises.

For a start, one of the earliest songs to stand out stylistically is the Moldovan entry A Century Of Love, which could have a broader appeal a la Hungary 07 and do better than people think (i.e. gaining more than just automatic points from the likes of Romania). There is also something about San Marino's Complice that suggests a big, in-your-face visual presentation could see it achieving greater sucess than I expected it to as well. If it does, I suspect the Belgian ditty may get completely overlooked, especially with Azerbaijan on its tail.

The second third of the semi-final is where I feel the viewers at home will probably start to find more to keep them interested. Both the Norwegian and Polish entries come across well in context, complementing rather than working against one another. Irelande Douze Pointe has a more positive impact than at first seemed likely, while Bosnia & Herzegovina's Pokušaj towers over the entries that bookend it without looking down its nose at them.

Despite earlier sections not being without them, it is the tail end of the semi-final that seems to have the greatest concentration of songs that sound the way you expect successful Eurovision entries too. Coming after Armenia, The Netherlands' Your Heart Belongs To Me appears more inventive and inviting than it perhaps is, which could stand it in better stead than I would have given it credit for. But apart from that anomaly, I still feel the draw has done each of the last four songs the biggest favour.

For what it's worth then, the following are the countries whose names I predict will be in the ten envelopes at the end of the night. Personal preference doesn't come into it; it's based on the assumption that all 19 performances are equally good and equally attractive in their own right; I make no distinction between the nine that qualify through televoting and the jury wildcard; and they're in alphabetical order rather than any anticipated ranking.

- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Finland
- Greece
- Ireland
- Israel
- Norway
- Romania
- Russia

Publish and be damned I say, although I reckon I'm on fairly safe ground with about half of them. My own qualifiers would be slightly different, with Moldova and perhaps The Netherlands fitting in somewhere, although to be honest finding any more than a handful of personal favourites is a struggle. There's something polarising about the field this year, which is what makes it so open - none of the songs have nothing going for them, but that doesn't necessarily make them likeable. (Not that that's any different from any other year, I suppose.) Can't wait to see how the performances on the night change things.

Greece

2008-04-23T14:53:00.001+03:00

Secret Combination Kalomira

Since the introduction of the wildcard system in the draw for the running order, all bar one of the lucky countries have elected to start in the second half of the draw, and generally as close to the opening of voting as possible. The rush on these spots is understandable: of late, the last part of the contest has produced more qualifiers, better results and more winners. When Greece was given the chance to pick their position in the first semi-final it was therefore no surprise to see them plumping for #19. However, the wisdom of choosing to go last is largely received; the record for the semi-finals is completely hit and miss, with two songs making it through and two falling by the wayside. What's more, the two that have made it through - given the tendency of qualifiers to dominate the top half of the scoreboard come the final - have then bombed, be it modestly or rather spectacularly. When you look at it, if you pay any heed to such things, you start to wonder what the Head of Delegation was thinking.

Kalomira and her orthodox Greek entry are also up against it in terms of their circle of friends having been reduced to a slightly misshapen hemisphere by the distribution of countries between the two semi-finals. With only a handful of major sponsors left in their competition, as well as a number who traditionally show little or no support, Greece qualifying for the final is not the foregone conclusion some might think it is. Secret Combination does fit the mould of the kind of song and performance that should appeal to a televoting audience - the aforementioned attractive young lady singing an upbeat song in English with a slick dance routine - but in a semi-final where she will not be alone in trying to win the audience over with such a routine, Kalomira will probably have to take it that one step further to secure the votes she needs to see Greece through to their eighth consecutive final.

The thing is, I'm not sure she has what it takes to produce anything other than a merely competent display of singing in tune and not messing up the choreography. While she hasn't put a foot wrong (literally and vocally) in any live version I have seen or heard to date, her range is clearly restricted, and there is something reedy about her voice that suggests the slightest pressure would see it snap. The conundrum is that although she may need to crank it up a notch on the night, she really oughtn't to try lest her limitations are exposed; and if she doesn't, all we'll be left with is a workaday presentation of a fairly average pop song.

Not that there's a lot wrong with either, mind you, and the fact that Kalomira is so easy on the eye obviously works in her favour. There's just a tangible sense about the whole thing having been done before, many times, several of them better, and in the context of the first semi-final there is little about Secret Combination that marks it out as being particularly stronger than the other entries. Since it is not necessarily any weaker either, the Greek delegation will simply have to hope that something about the performance grabs people's attention and holds it for the short space of time until the telephone lines are opened. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them in the final, in spite of my reservations, but if the audience has already decided which similarly uncomplicated song to vote for by the time this one takes to the stage and they fail to make it through, they might question whether choosing to wait until everyone else has had their three minutes in the spotlight before turning it on themselves was such a clever move.

Russia

2008-04-23T12:00:00.002+03:00

Believe Dima Bilan

It's very hard not to be considered a favourite virtually every year in Eurovision if you are a nation whose music industry dominates or at the very least spills over into a dozen other countries in the contest and the expats in those countries are large in number and generally very nationalistic. It is a unique position that Russia holds and has led many to assume that it is just a matter of time before they win. Indeed, under the televoting system and with their tendency to enter broadly popular songs in English it is not inconceivable that Russia will never finish outside of the top ten again, if not top five or even top three. This year though they will be hoping to do one better than their two first princess finishes to date, and the ingredients are there for them to do so: the return of Dima Bilan, one of the country's biggest stars, in a year where there is a fairly open field, with a textbook anthem crafted under one of the world's most successful producers. On paper they can't really go wrong.

As ever though the biggest obstacle Russia has to overcome is itself. We have seen in the past some of the odd decisions they have made leading to their undoing (2004's Believe Me being the prime example*) and if the latest developments are anything to go by this year's pudding may already have been overegged to the point of no return. Not content with what was a very solid foundation, the team behind Believe have built a gingerbread house on top of it, smothered it in sugar syrup, turned the duck pond into a skating rink and stuck a fiddler on the roof. Now as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am all for strings; introduce them to an acoustic arrangement with some piano and I will generally go weak at the knees. But in what seems to me to be a typically Russian lack of restraint, the makeover the song has been given has pushed the violin to the fore at the expense of the rest of the composition, and it is so much the weaker - and more overblown - for it.

Not that anyone who hears it for the first time on the night will know any different, of course. To them it may still come across as a perfectly decent anthem with a prominent violin. I'm just not convinced that the presentation will make it anything other than laughable. Everything - from the remix itself to the eye-rollingly holier-than-thou video accompanying the original version - points to an OTT performance that is as likely to turn people away as it is draw them in. The artist still known as Dima Bilan may have a hard time selling the song as heartfelt if he doesn't rein himself in; the troubled-star-overwhelmed-by-the-faith-and-trust-placed-in-him hystrionics of the Russian national final will have no place at the contest itself, and if there's even the slightest hint of them he can kiss his chances of victory goodbye.

Which is to say he will probably end up in the top five anyway. Mathematically (as boring as it is) there are just about enough countries in the first semi-final to guarantee Russia a place in the final, however off-puttingly grandiloquent the display we are treated to in Belgrade, and once it gets there I can't see anything to stop it attracting a dozen douzes like a giant magnet. And that's only on the assumption that the performance will be overweening: if it is actually tasteful and artistic rather than repellent and appeals to a wider audience it will be a contender for victory. If Lordi had been defrocked in Athens it is highly likely Dima would already have won once, so his appetite for it will be strong, and barring Charlotte Perrelli he won't have any competition this time round whose bodies are almost entirely prosthetic.

Moreover, to be fair to the lad, he and his team did err on just the right side of pretentious in 2006, so there's nothing to say they won't do so again this year. Plus Russia seems to be itching for the chance to host the contest in order to show Europe what it is capable of more than any other country (apart from Malta), so victory with Believe would be fitting in a number of ways. A modest wager on Moscow 2009 might not bring much of a return, but it has to be one of the safest bets of the year.

*Omen, anyone?

Romania

2008-04-22T20:38:00.001+03:00

Pe-o Margine De Lume Nico & Vlad

Eurovision by its very nature leaves itself open to allegations of identity theft. A contest that basically requires those taking part in it to come up with something an audience will be familiar and/or comfortable with in order to win means accusations of unoriginality are levelled at the majority of entries every year. Taken to its extreme this manifests itself in the frenzy of plagiarism slander of the national final season, which is almost always baseless. Nevertheless, like a watchdog with a bone, there is a subclass of fan who will monitor every aspect of the songs in competition and ruthlessly expose any breach of regulations. One of the countries plagued by both in recent years has been Romania, albeit generally on technical points. While the songs they do eventually send to the contest have by and large gone unscathed in the "that's a blatant copy of blah blah" stakes, they represent a more cunning form of larceny: Romania has become the new Italy.

Pe-o Margine De Lume marks the third consecutive entry from the country with lyrics in Italian. Fair dos, the few lines delivered in the language in the hotchpotch of tongues that was 2007's Liubi, Liubi, I Love You were unremarkable compared to 2006's Tornerò, but a pattern is clearly emerging. Whether it is a simple attraction to the language or some strange sense of responsibility for making it heard, Romania is taken with Italian. And quite right, too: it rarely if ever fails to work when set to music, and sounds as good here as anywhere. Of course, the song also marks two countries in a row that will be returning to their linguistic roots for the first time in a decade in Belgrade: the Italian is twinned with Romanian, and the marriage of the romance languages is a harmonious one.

Less balanced perhaps is the picture presented by the newlyweds brought together for the song. While many a fan would happily consummate the nuptials with Vlad Miriţă, Nico tends to come across both visually and vocally as the rich dowager who's hired herself a beefy young escort for the night (not that there's anything wrong with that). In a way though it works in their favour: Vlad's powerful tenor delivery is offset by a sense of fragility in Nico's, and the blend of their voices is actually quite successful. Besides, we need look no further than 2002 for proof that a superficially mismatched couple can deliver a song like this with more conviction, and more convincingly, than you might expect.

The similarities to Tell Me Why don't merely amount to the duo performing the song, needless to say. Pe-o Margine De Lume is another straightforward ballad from Romania, well-structured, with some neat and effective orchestration. It doesn't try to push the envelope, but at the same time it doesn't present itself as anything other than what it is. Even if it weren't in the same semi-final as Moldova, San Marino and Spain (three countries you would think were sure to send double figures its way) its lack of ostentation ought to see it picking up points left, right and centre. The contrast with the Finnish entry won't do it any harm either, so I am fairly certain we will be seeing it in the final - its rightful place, some might say, as Italy by any other name.

Finland

2008-04-22T19:37:00.003+03:00

Missä Miehet Ratsastaa Teräsbetoni

Like buses, you wait ten years for a song in Finnish and two come along at once. ‘Mitäs nyt? Kesävalot nyt’ might not amount to much in the Estonian entry, but repeated four times it amounts to an entire chorus, and as such contributes to an unlikely first in contest history: never before have we seen such prominent Finnish twice in one night at Eurovision. The last time we heard any at all was back in Birmingham in 1998 with the triumph of lyrical minimalism that was Aava. At just six words, it presented the language with understated beauty, employing the same trick as Poland had some years previously of eschewing any of its harsher sounds in an attempt to make it more listenable to the average European ear. And now, a decade later, Finnish is set to burst back onto the scene in a way that bites the heads off minimalism and understatement and spits them straight in the audience’s face.

At least, that’s the impression Teräsbetoni would like to give us. The edge is taken off their entry by the fact that it is the third in a row from Finland out of the same stable. It is seen by many as little more than ‘Lordi without the masks’, and once you take them away what you are left with is men shouting. In this case it is men shouting in a strange language no one understands, and the Czech Republic’s debut last year proved that as flexible as Eurovision is, this is not something televoters are fond of without a bit of theatre to distract them. (The exception of course being Estonian televoters, but applied to Missä Miehet Ratsastaa the point becomes moot.) I fully expect the staging of the song in Serbia to be a showcase of pyrotechnic overkill, but I doubt it will prove very effective as a smokescreen. Most people who tune in every year will recognise that it’s all been done before, even if they don’t realise by the same country, and any initial explosion of interest may quickly fizzle out.

What the song does have going for it, and what may consequently keep that spark of interest alive, is a slightly camp sensibility that was entirely lacking in Hanna Pakarinen’s broody delivery of Leave Me Alone in Helsinki. The origins of the ‘huh! hah!’ hook can be traced back as far as the glamtastic days of the ’70s, lending the song an all too brief and presumably unintended air of Boney M vs any big-haired thrash metal group from the late ’80s. Not that the queer overtones start and end there: there is something hyper-masculine to the point (yet again) of homoeroticism implicit in the idea of a bunch of big brawny men mounting their steeds and rampaging their way across the land, even if it is to rape and pillage. Lines like “where men ride no sheep can pasture” raise an unexpected titter and add to the feeling that the song is an OTT triumph not to be taken in the slightest bit seriously.

If that’s the way Teräsbetoni play it, I would say the song stands a decent chance of qualifying. It is well placed to do so, coming at the tail end of its semi-final and standing out from all of the songs around it. While I’m not convinced it deserves a slot in the final on musical merit - it takes the carrot and stick approach, dangling it tantalisingly close but ultimately always out of reach - there’s no doubt it would add a splash of colour, if not the violent rivers of red it might aspire to. With a good draw it could even find itself doing OK. In any event, whether it is romps into the final or is reined in during the semi, Missä Miehet Ratsastaa will blaze a quintessentially Finnish trail across our Eurovision screens, and that’s a sight worth beholding.

The Netherlands

2008-04-21T22:38:00.002+03:00

Your Heart Belongs To Me Hind

Just as there is more to Eurovision these days than the songs themselves, there is much more to Europe and its population than the nations represented in the contest. For a few years now - roughly since the time 100% televoting was introduced and the influence expats could have on the outcome became apparent -I have wondered why some countries haven't looked to activate the continent's residents from other corners of the globe to vote for them. (Something along the lines of Basement Jaxx's Romeo for the UK, aimed at the Indian population of Europe. That kind of thing.) In an age when a diaspora armed with mobile phones and willing to text for their country can make a big impact, it seems like a sensible thing to do. And whether or not that was the intent, it looks like the country that may benefit most from such an approach in Belgrade is The Netherlands. I suspect that NOS selecting Hind was not, in fact, a cunning move to unite the Moroccans of Europe, but it may yet have that effect.

The Netherlands has long brandished its melting pot credentials at Eurovision, giving us the contest's first black artist in 1966, but has never really reflected its cultural diversity in one of its entries. Your Heart Belongs To Me redresses the balance a little: a song in which the ethnic influences of the performer's father('s)land are layered atop the traditionally solid foundations of Dutch pop. The combination works, too. It could very easily have come across as a Turkish attempt to not be very Turkish, but the diverse elements of the arrangement are neatly interwoven, and although it sometimes sounds as if the instruments are speaking different languages, it is always with the sense that they are saying the same thing.

The fact that they labour the point is the song's biggest stumbling block. As one of the most uptempo entries in the 2008 contest it eats up airtime at an astonishing rate and feels like it should be over long before it is - an attribute it shares with Amambanda, the ill-fated Dutch entry in Athens, despite being a much more rounded song. In this sense it is also comparable to the entry that will immediately precede it in Belgrade, Qele Qele (more so than for any reasons of musical similarity, which are striking for their absence). Both songs tend to see my interest wavering, but it may be Your Heart Belongs To Me that comes off worse: regardless of whether it is a more deserving three minutes of music or how dependable a performer Hind is, the Armenian entry has something about it that suggests they will be able to offset the drag more spectacularly and therefore, in a contest that is now as much visual as it is aural, more effectively.

Hence my nomination of The Netherlands as one of the countries hardest done by in the draw for the running order of the semi-final back in my introductory post. My concern is that preceded by the textbook ethno pop of Sirusho and with Teräsbetoni rocking up for Finland straight after her, Hind will have to put in a performance that is vocally flawless and yet still eye-catching and entertaining to stand much of a chance of qualifying. It will be interesting to see whether the Moroccans of Europe - or at least those in the countries with Tuesday night voting rights - do throw their support behind her, although even with it my gut feeling is that they won't be given a second opportunity to do so.

Armenia

2008-04-21T18:17:00.001+03:00

Qele Qele Sirusho

In a year in which there seem to be few certainties in Eurovision, with a fairly open field and no absolute favourite for victory, one thing most are agreed on is that Armenia is a foolproof qualifier from the first semi-final. The thinking behind this seems sound enough: this year they are following the winning formula of an attractive young lady singing an upbeat song with ethnic touches; they have finished inside the top ten in the final on both of their previous appearances, thanks largely to a text-happy diaspora; and a large proportion of that diaspora coincidentally happens to be voting in the first semi-final. You might think a Saturday slot is a mere formality, with the three minutes on Tuesday just another chance to sort out the camera angles and lighting prior to it actually counting. And you'd probably be right.

There's only one problem. Why are we convinced of the qualification chances of a song we have never heard performed live? Why has everyone put so much faith in statistics and chosen to overlook the fact that for all we know Sirusho might make a total dog's breakfast of the whole thing, even if she does look pretty while doing so? We have seen in the past that traditional supporters of one country or another will not give their unconditional backing to an entry if it fails to live up to expectations, and surely where Qele Qele is concerned those have been built up to proportions that will leave an entire nation with its head in its hands wondering where it all went wrong if Armenia fails to be one of the names in those ten envelopes.

Mind you, there's nothing about Sirusho that suggests she can't handle herself on stage. She clearly knows how to perform, and choreography shouldn't be a problem. It's just that when you mime your way through a national final it does tend to set a few alarm bells ringing. It doesn't help matters that her voice - in the studio version, obviously - has an edge to it that makes me think she's only ever one overambitious dance step away from sounding unattractive for the two and half minutes after that arresting opening. It's for that reason (among others) that I approach the Armenian entry with a caution borne of expecting a Sakis Rouvas clone from Cyprus in 2005 and ending up with Ela Ela.

For there's no denying that while engaging enough in its own way, Qele Qele is one of the most calculated pre-fab songs in this year's contest. (This is especially obvious coming straight after Bosnia & Herzegovina's unconventional entry.) Not that you can blame them for taking the path of least resistance: the whole point of Eurovision is to find a mix that people like, and in this song Armenia pretty much has all of the ingredients it needs for a good result. Nor is it beyond praise: the blend of synths and traditional instruments works very well and produces one of the most rhythmic numbers we will see in Belgrade. I'm not sure it sustains itself the way it needs to, musically, although any gaps here are likely to be filled visually on the night.

In the end we can only ever make predictions on the assumption that all of the performances will be solid; start introducing variables and you lose objectivity. On that basis I imagine Armenia will qualify for the final, but after that their fate largely depends on who qualifies with them. If the rest of the field is free of upbeat girly songs, they should be in with a shout of bettering their regulation eighth place. If not, and the draw is not all that kind to them, they'll probably still come eighth anyway. If statistics are anything to go by.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

2008-04-16T15:58:00.003+03:00

Pokušaj Laka

As fans of Eurovision we often do the songs that enter the contest a great disservice in our rush to label them. On the basis of a leaked demo version or raw staging on some late show months before the event we pigeonhole things as 'boring ballads' and 'join-the-dots pop' when they might in fact be engaging, well-constructed anthems or floorfillers that are much more complex than they first appear. Given their perceived prevalence this year, it is no suprise then that so many of the songs for Serbia have had 'joke entry' stamped all over them, but this is perhaps the most misleading and unflattering label of them all. 'Novelty entry' would perhaps be more appropriate, since it allows a much broader interpretation: 'novelty' as in 'fun and entertaining' and 'novelty' as in 'something new'. However, only one of this year's songs really goes left-field for reasons of artistry rather than laughs, and that is the entry from Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Start talking about artistry in the context of Eurovision though and you run the risk of being shot down in flames and either yourself or the song in question (or both) being subject to the further label of 'pretentious'. Thankfully, whatever their views of the song itself, most fans seem to realise that grouping Pokušaj with the likes of Leto Svet, Baila El Chiki-Chiki and Wolves Of The Sea is doing it an injustice. Recognising that there is something artistic happening in the song does not mean denegrating those you seek to separate it from; it just means accepting that the person who wrote it actually has something to say, whether we get it or not.

Pokušaj is one of those rare songs that works in both its native language and English*. The lyrics of both versions are far from the run-of-the-mill rhyming dictionary structures that usually accompany Eurovision songs, presenting the listener with ideas and images that will actually make you think, if you let them. Citing local musical lore, the chant that introduces the Bosnian version (and which is rightly retained for the English version) draws you into the song with the sense of a narrative about to unfold. And so it does, in both languages. I tend to prefer the English, at least for what is ostensibly the 'chorus', and though I have heard that the song will be performed completely in Bosnian in Belgrade, I hope the team behind it realise that it has something to say in English as well.

Some would say that the performance speaks for itself, but that is not as true of this song as others - what happens on stage is an interpretation of what the song is trying to say rather than the personification of it, which is why I feel that delivering part of it in English would stand it in better stead. There's the risk that if it's not, televoters will just see it as some kooky guy singing an unorthodox song in a weird language with bizarre staging. This could well press their buttons I suppose, if that's all they expect from Eurovision, but there is art aplenty in Pokušaj and it would be a shame for it to go unnoticed.

Having said that, my fears may well prove unfounded. One of the things that most struck me about the song when I first heard it was the dexterity of the composition and, from about the halfway mark onwards when it cranks up a gear, just how much it sounds like something Muse or Keane or some other British piano rock group might come up with. Whether or not I am alone in this association I don't know, but I'm hoping the music alone is enough to open the song up to a wider audience than a Balkan entry might otherwise receive. The arrangement is stunning and certainly worthy of recognition: a blend of individually subtle elements, the cornerstones of which - the piano, strings and guitar - are laid in the opening minute of the song before coming together to form a whole that truly is greater than the sum of its (nevertheless invaluable) parts.

Yes, I know, I guess I'm breaking my own rule here and getting a little too effusive to call myself 'objective', but Pokušaj is my favourite song in this year's contest precisely because it has so much quality to offer. I can't say I'm convinced this is something everyone will appreciate, although I am buoyed by the fact that despite having similar misgivings last year about my 2007 favourite, the Georgian debut Visionary Dream, I was largely proven wrong. I certainly hope to see Laka and Bosnia & Herzegovina doing just as well in Belgrade as Sopho did in Helsinki, if not better, as their song is really quite brilliant. I'm aware that's a label as much as any other, but at least it is a considered one.

*Another example that springs to mind is Karolina's Od Nas Zavisi, the English version of which is pure poetry.

Andorra

2008-04-15T17:03:00.003+03:00

Casanova Gisela

Sad but true, good intentions are rarely rewarded at Eurovision. Any country whose Head of Delegation excuses the lack of ambition displayed by its entry with claims of it 'bringing quality to the contest' or 'representing their linguistic and cultural heritage' is bound to have a hard time on the scoreboard. Though fans often take to such songs as much because they are overlooked as for any reasons of quality, it doesn't change the fact that they're unlikely to get very far with the wider European audience unless they drop the agenda. One participating nation that has done just that is Andorra: after thinking outside of the box for their entry in Helsinki, they have ditched it altogether for Belgrade. And the transformation couldn't be any more complete: after three and a half years of misplaced values they have gone positively Estonian, shipping in a singer from a neighbouring country with a second-rate piece of schlager sung entirely in English.

Inevitably, the irony of replacing one rigid formula with another you presume to be closer to something that will actually appeal to people is that it has arguably produced the tiny principality's weakest entry to date. Casanova is pop trash at its most pure, and while it might eschew the key change it needs to make the leap to super-schlager status, it does everything else you expect of such a song. In fact for what it is it's rather good: it has a clearly delineated structure of musical signposts that never leave you scratching your head as to what's coming next, a catchy chorus and the requisite non-taxing lyrics anyone who bothered to listen to them would understand. (The one line in Catalan is odd, and would be better delivered in a whisper given the context in which it is sung, but then I doubt that anyone will either notice or care that such layers of thought and meaning have not gone into the song.)

If the measure of success of the entry is qualifying for the final, I suspect Andorra may once again come away from the contest disappointed. Sandwiched between two more memorable entries, Gisela will have to give the performance of the night to even stand a chance of making it through, especially when she's singing the kind of song that only seems to go down well when done (better) by Sweden. Then again, the obvious lack of ambiguity Casanova presents may stand it in good stead, tapping a vein of straightforward appeal among those who want nothing more from Eurovision than an attractive girl with a decent voice and a dance routine singing an upbeat song with a smile on her face.